Office Online Updated with Improved Reading View, File Management and Editing

Microsoft today announced its first major update to Office Online, the web-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote. These updates are rolling out now and provide Office improved Reading View, file management and editing experiences.

Previous called the Office Web Apps, Office Online is available for free from Office.com, or as part of Office 365.

Today’s updates include:

New Start experience. Microsoft says the new Start experience is optimized to get you into the right editing experience as fast as possible. So you can directly access your most recently used files, other files in OneDrive, or quickly create a blank document or a document based on a template. (Basically, it works like the Start experience in the desktop and mobile app versions of Office apps.)

Reading View improvements. The Reading View experience in Word Online has been updated with Edit, Print (which now supports direct printing to PDF), Share and Comments buttons in the toolbar so you can access these commands more easily. Advanced tools, like Translate and Download, can be found via the More (“…”) menu.

File management improvements. The Office Online apps now support a number of new options off the Save As menu, including Save a Copy to OneDrive, Rename, Download a Copy (from OneDrive to your PC), and Download as PDF.

Add files to OneDrive more easily. Via a new Add to OneDrive button on the Office Online app toolbar, you can save a file—such as one you can only view and not edit—to your OneDrive. Then you can edit or share it normally.

Tell Me. The Office Online apps have been updated to with a Tell Me search box so you can find what you’re looking for more easily.

Better proofreading. Microsoft made backend improvements to its proofreading service and added a highlighted word count feature (in addition to total document word count) to Word Online.

Android integration. If you access the Office Online apps from a Windows PC, you know that each app lets you open a document in the corresponding Windows desktop application so you can access more functionality. Now, this works with the Office apps for Android tablets too (Word, Excel and PowerPoint Online).