One of the biggest challenges of using Office on a touch screen was how small the icons where that you would always miss that touch. Today Microsoft has unveiled a new version of Office that is touch friendly.
Microsoft calls this “a preview of a work in progress,” that closely resembles Office for iPad that was unveiled last week. The toolbars are sparsely populated and feature buttons that should be large enough and spaced far enough apart that they’ll be easy to select with your fingers. We can also see Microsoft’s famous “Ribbon” UI is still around, but it’s been hidden to fit well in a touch environment. You can also pinch to zoom in as on the iPad app.
Today’s Office news mingles well into another big announcement of the day: universal Windows apps. Thanks to Microsoft’s new developer feature, the new version of Office will be released across all the Windows family. That means the new office is not only coming to Windows laptops and tablets, but also to Windows Phones. Unfortunately, Microsoft didn’t give any clues as to when the new touch-friendly Office will be available.
