Microsoft 365 (Office) Reviews

by Mark Verizon Customer

Since the installation of the new Office app, if I go to OneDrive on an iOS device and open a Word file or create a Word file, what interface shows up in the opened or created file isn’t Word app or a Word interface. Instead this “Office” app opens. It’s very confusing. The Office app interface is very basic, and even the font graphics are simplistic. Since I have discovered this quirk with the “Office” app, and since going to support didn’t give me an easy way to address the issue, I cannot rate this new Office app very high, only one star low. If I open just the Word app, it seems to work just fine.

So today, to try and avoid the Office app doing this, since I already have Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps installed and working well on iOS devices, I removed the Office app and dropped my rating to one star.

by Jiminhasjams

I am a college student using Microsoft Office for essays and assignments. There are a lot of things that bug me about Microsoft365Office structure but my biggest complaint is Microsoft365Office ’s constant lagging. Whenever I type on Microsoft365Office for a bit more than, say, 30 minutes, Microsoft365Office stalls to a halt. When it gets to that point, when I type, the letters come on the screen seconds after I type them in. And even when I try to close Microsoft365Office down and open the Doc, Microsoft365Office still stalls. Then, I resort to switching to the Word app (which does the same thing), and I just fall into a cycle of switching between apps. I have an 2021 IPad 12.9 Pro that I recently bought, so I know that my device isn’t the problem. I also don’t know why it takes so long for documents to save on Microsoft365Office . When I finish typing and go back to the Home Screen, the doc says that its still uploading onto OneDrive. When it comes down to this, I usually switch to Google Docs, and I never see the same problems I have with Microsoft Office or Microsoft Word. Please Microsoft, I want to use your apps, but I can’t deal with the constant stalling

by PATRIKCZE

I do not know what happened if that is fault of our corporate policy or Microsoft fail to implement MDM, or Apple fail to provide proper functionality in iOS 15 … but I do not understand why I’m blocked by our corporate policy everywhere means in all Microsoft applications. Whenever I would like to open document from my private Teams in word, excel, power point, I’m always failing with inaccessibility because for some reasons corporate policies are applied to my personal account. What the heck ! I can’t simple print nothing. How is that even possible. Aren’t all applications send boxes how Microsoft achieved this stupidity !? I don’t care who’s fault it is, just fix it asap! Totally useless app which leads me to use purely Apple products like Pages, Numbers, etc.

by MaxAgHammer

I don’t know if Microsoft365Office by itself is better than having the three separate Office apps installed, but it takes up considerably less space. I use this almost exclusively for Excel documents, and Microsoft365Office is an adequate editor for very simple things like adding new data entries and viewing attachments received via mail or shared via cloud based file services. However, Microsoft365Office is EXTREMELY SLOW to work with and its interface feels claustrophobic and fiddly on an iPhone 8 screen. Maybe it’s better on an iPad Pro, with the larger display and more powerful CPU to run it? I don’t even try to do anything so complicated as enter formulas or format cells when I’m using Microsoft365Office… like I said, the UI is not great.

A word of warning: if you rely on Dropbox to store Office documents that you frequently work with and update via Microsoft365Office, you will tear your hair out in frustration at the way Office turns into a complete basket case trying to deal with Dropbox storage. I don’t know whose fault that is, Microsoft or Dropbox, but it’s infuriating and will happen to you even when doing the simplest things to documents retrieved from Dropbox folders. It gets even worse if you’re using a VPN… be ready for lost work and mondo pain. At least everything works even slower over VPN connections, so you have that to look forward to.

by Biox

The latest update seems to know little about saving documents in the iPadOS/iOS/macOS Files app (iCloud storage). All on its own, Office moved a file I frequently modify from Files into iPad-local storage. No notice or warning was given—I just happened to notice 2 copies of the file present in Recents. One copy is the latest version and stored locally and can’t be migrated to Files. The other copy was a week old, from just before this Office update which makes claims about protecting personal documents from being saved in the cloud. Sheesh. How does a bug this bad get released, except that Microsoft doesn’t care much about Apple users?

by Ksabry

Microsoft365Office is not a replacement for separate office apps, word, excel and PowerPoint, it is nothing but a quick way to add and delete some data, other than that it would be very hard to create a complete document trying to use features like tables and objects and formatting etc. i used it on iPad Pro M1 yet its performance was bad and many features are missing. Also you will face a problem when sharing the document from a windows to iOS using Microsoft365Office, as the view of the document is different on both. Objects tends to move from its place and the whole formatting of the documents gets ruined. That is not the kind of quality that we were used to from Microsoft when it comes to office suite. I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT better use the separate apps, yet still it is not as powerful or easy as on windows and that is a shameful strategy from Microsoft to not power up office on apple products.

by Alexisrose22543

I really like Microsoft365Office. It’s very useful to have on my phone, as it allows me to do my work for college on the go. I have had one major issue with it. I spent four hours on an essay for English, and it was perfect. About 15 minutes before class, I was editing it just before I was going to print it. I had all the text highlighted, and I was just changing the paragraph spacing and font. I somehow hit the backspace and I lost all of the text. My phone buffered for a moment. I wasn’t panicking, at first. I hit the undo button, but nothing happened. I tried a couple more times, still nothing. A little bit of panic started to set in, but I was trying not to freak out. I went back to the paper’s history, and it hadn’t saved for hours. This essay was a big part of my grade, and it was all gone. Sure, I should have manually saved it, but it usually saves on it’s own. Moral of the story, save your work, because Microsoft365Office might not.

by A3874

A sync issue has happened three times now. I open a document saved to OneDrive on my iPad and start editing. I then switch to another app to look something up. I return to Office, only to be told that changes can’t be uploaded because someone else is editing the document. No one else is editing the document. I have opened it on only one device, and no other. And if someone else were, why is that a problem? What is the point of saving documents to the cloud if collaboration is impossible? If someone else if editing, figure that stuff out and sync the changes. So I close the document then click on the icon indicating a sync issue. I click on resolve, hoping I can merge the two conflicting copies. No such option is available. I have to manually copy the changes I made, discard them, and then paste them in. Wonderful.

by Dan62103

I’ve had an iPad since day 1, gen 1. I have waited ever since for Microsoft and Apple to meld their strengths and have a good workflow for office on IOS and cloud files. After reading about Microsoft365Office’s release I was hopeful this was the one that would become the solution. And then after downloading realized...it’s prioritized for phones and does the lame compatibility version for iPad. I don’t work in the tech industry, but would bet money that an analysis would show people using office on mobile devices are largely on tablets and less on phones. Are that many people really making presentations and excel files on phone screens? This needed to be a universal app or prioritized for iPads first and then have a phone version. Feels like a no brainer and failure for now for me. Hoping iPad prioritization comes soon.

by Apps As I See Them

The Office app for iOS as of February 2020 seems to be lacking a lot of the power promised in the various videos from Microsoft floating around. It looks like Microsoft365Office was rushed out before it was finished.
One video shows the ability to create a PowerPoint from an outline, but try finding the “Create Outline” button in this version.
Office Lens already has some great capabilities - such as scanning a whiteboard or making a PDF - and Microsoft365Office does those too. And while it will get those images or scans over into a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document, that’s hardly bringing them all into one place in any easy way.
I hope Microsoft will continue to develop this into what they’ve promised. But at this point, there’s not enough in Microsoft365Office , and what is there isn’t quite integrated yet.

by LouisPiper

Microsoft365Office gets jettisoned from memory more than any other app I can think of. I have games that I’ll swipe home, open safari, then go back to and they won’t have moved. Microsoft365Office? If I take my eyes off the screen it’s gone. Thankfully it saves everything but wow does it take time to watch it reload EVERY SINGLE TIME. Add that to the fact that Microsoft365Office seems to put images wherever it feels like in Word docs I wonder why I use it every single time I tap to open it. If I wasn’t required to use it I would hand write everything and send by carrier pigeon than use it. It is truly a terrible experience.

by Hsbbba

The iPad version is adequate though it’s hard to tell if a document is auto-saving or not. When I tap the “back” button, thinking I’m going to the main menu, Outlook opens as if I’m sharing the newly edited document. I then find out the edited version has NOT been saved.
Even more confusion ensues when I work on docs on my laptop. MS One Drive is completely useless. Every document appears to have a different “save” pathway- eg “OneDrive”, “OneDrive personal”, “OneDrive for business”, etc. Sometimes the web version of Office opens, sometimes Microsoft365Office opens. Nothing makes sense.
I’m glad I my institution wasted their money on this and not myself... That being said, unfortunately I’m stuck using this garbage.

by Alberich_

Microsoft365Office is amazing for writing essays on the go. I recently got the Magic Keyboard for my iPad and I’ve been using it for essays. My only issue is that I wish I could add my google drive as a location to save my files to. Everything is saved to my google drive and I prefer it over one drive. It’s a major pain having to save my files to the files app and then transfer it over to my google drive. (Honestly I wish the desktop version of word would allow you to add a google drive to a location you can save to, but this is a review about the iPad app so, whatever.)

by Slappme

At the moment, I would wish that the folders and documents could show a time sensitive organization, with regard to; the most recent item being accessed. That being said, perhaps in a column along the right hand side of the phone or whatever else is being used, it would be able to see how many hours or days ago the file or document was used or opened.

Just a thought.
Thanks!

by Medicman615

The positive impact Office productivity suite and it’s communication tools has had on my life is almost incalculable; that is, as long as you don’t apply Office’s significant calculation tools! Office easily carried me all the way to my doctorate program and probably would have carried me all the way through, if it only had a medical application. I’ve enjoyed Office most of my life. It became my platform from which I articulated myself to others. It is my storage box. It is my diary!

by Jzriot

So, I love O365 and I use it for work nearly every day. While I’m a fan of the office app on my phone and find it easy to find things I’m looking for (or have opened recently), i can’t help but feel rather annoyed at the “mobile version” of Microsoft365Office on the iPad. I find myself daily checking Microsoft365Office Store for updates and looking for an update for iPad.

If Microsoft365Office had a meaningful iPad user interface (that is, using the ENTIRE SCREEN), then Microsoft365Office would get 5 stars for me.

Let’s get that iPad update!

by Apfitzg2

This is great! The update is very efficient for me. I work between Word and Excel quite often for research. To be able to open, copy, and use actions quickly when I’m doing something quickly (like emailing my boss about statistical results) is essential. Office does this very well and I’m very happy with Microsoft listening to customers and combining all of the essentials into one. I also really like the option to convert an image to Excel table or image to text. These small features really make me love it.

by Hdaugherty90

I love the current setup with teams and 365 app integration. It is so nice to be able to login to Team and edit all of our team documents and share/edit things simultaneously, it just makes life so easy. I don’t know how I would work without all my Office applications. This is used mostly for my work account but I will never do without my personal 365 subscription either. Keep it up Microsoft, lets see a free update to that Windows 11!! 😉

by TrueReviewer02

Great call by Microsoft to add their Office Trio (Word, Excel and Power Point) into one app.
I have an older 16GB phone, and Storage is at a high premium. With Microsoft365Office, I can write papers, work on spreadsheets and presentations without taking up space with three separate apps, saving me precious storage space.
This is a great app for working on projects in places I can't bring my laptop, or if one of my other family members is using it, I can still be productive from my phone.
Pair Microsoft365Office with a bluetooth keyboard and you have a winning combination!

by Atlg8or

Microsoft365Office is an example of something I didn’t know I needed but once I began exploring and using it, I love it. Very elegant and simple solution, with access to all of the key use cases. Microsoft continues to delight under Satya Nadella and Microsoft365Office is another example of a well-executed solution that not only meets needs but delights in its simplicity. As MS continues to improve some of the bones (lens/pdf scanning and editing, etc.) Microsoft365Office will only continue to get better. Well done Microsoft and Office app developers. Love it.

by Mac Since 1985

You can no longer be sure if a file is saved or where, or if when you try to open it again, you’ll get the message that it is in an unsupported location. The new combo app, and also the latest versions of the iOS stand-alone Office apps, now will insist on an invisible and non-Mac and non-intuitive filing system. The feeling is all-too reminiscent of the old pre-Windows MS-DOS days. The guiding principle seems just to force-sell their 365 subscriptions. Not for me.

by Thee Madam Bomb

Unless it’s a bug, Microsoft365Office seems to make you choose between optimization for a phone or tablet. I installed on my phone first and then on the iPad and it won’t resolve to the iPad screen properly. (There’s also a message generated saying as much). Beyond that super-annoying issue, I don’t really see how this is an improvement over the individual apps I use (Word, Excel & PPT) on these devices. It seems like a re-skin, not a re-think.

by JOK3R B

I like the idea of a all in one productivity app, however this just doesn’t work for me for a couple of reasons. Number one is the horrible built in Lens scanner. I had Lens before and quickly moved away from it once I discovered Evernote’s Scannable. I scan a lot of documents for work and work a lot with PDF’s so having a well performing scanner is essential for me and Lens simply doesn’t work well enough. I had hoped it had been upgraded for Microsoft365Office and would perform better but it’s the same as the stand alone version. The other PDF related problem is the lack of ability to mark up a PDF. Yes you can sign a document but I often need to add text, boxes or arrows to a PDF and those functions are not available here. The other major downfall is the lack of iPad support. I work a lot on my iPad and need the tools I use to be available there as well. I could see this maybe becoming a great all in one tool in the future with some tweaks but for now I’ll stick with Evernote, Scannable, Docs and Pages.

by Lirr User!

Hello. I used Microsoft365Office to open a password protected file on my OneDrive. Now I am unable to open the same file on my desktop excel program. I get a message that states this file is corrupt and can’t be open. Then when I try open on Microsoft365Office now it says that Microsoft365Office can not decrypt this file!!! Someone please fix this.

by S N 01

When you click the “+” button and then “Documents”, the image that appears on the screen is not aesthetic at all: The words “Word”, “Excel”, “Power Point” seem to be cut from the bottom and haven’t been placed properly.

by JETouttahere

I really am enjoying the interface. Have waited so long to see this. Looking forward to iPad optimization and Google Drive support. This gives me hope MS is finally thinking outside the box. Well done!

by Kyle5812

Microsoft365Office has already saved me. I had work files saved to an Excel spreadsheet on my MacBook Air.

When my MacBook Air decided to quit working, I was able to open up my spreadsheet on here and use it that way.

Thank you Microsoft!

by Greg P.

Love it. 9/10 right out of the gate. I love the two panels and the (+) action button. Surfacing Notes to the top is 💯 The Actions hub rules too. Man, really psyched. Wonder if there’s a widget. Uh, for improvements, adding different view modes, i.e., folder tree, gallery, for files would be rad.

by JonPShar

Enjoying it so much, esp sending and receiving files.

Also worth noting to ignore the dozens of people leaving bad reviews because they downloaded it and there’s no iPad app. The description very clearly states iPhone only. Get it together, reviewers.

by AlphaGhost84

It’s hard to get work done without Microsoft Office, and it is convenient to have everything all in one app. Office is not perfect but it is very good, especially on a mobile device. Some of the negative reviews are from over 6 years ago. Office for IOS has come a very long way since then.

by Devspace

Whoever came up with this idea of providing a unique seamless experience deserves much more than an appreciation. Microsoft365Office provides stunning experience with far less complexity compared to managing one for text and graphics needs. I am sure Microsoft365Office will get more revisions and tweaks down the lane , but I am very impressed with what Microsoft has done here. Outstanding!

by Ahhhhh!!!! Cheese

It’s so easy to navigate and have everything you need for working with the documents on my phone in one place. I often need to respond quickly, by photographing the drawing, making changes on the go, before it was a pain. I can now sign documents, create PDFs, and use office lens, all in the same place!

by 1970Weedville!

The new Microsoft Office turns the iPhone into a full function PC! Easy to use, remarkable functionality, I can be fully creative wherever I am. Hats off to Microsoft on this one. A must-have application!