Microsoft adds details on Office Web Apps touch screen features

PanARMENIAN.Net - Microsoft launched a new version of its Office Web Apps a few weeks ago, as part of its preview launch of Office 2013. The company is trying to make the web-based software suite work well owners of touch screen products, including those running on Windows 8.

According to Neowin, in a new blog post, Microsoft talks about how it has added touch screen-based editing features to Office Web Apps. The apps have been designed to work with Safari on iOS devices as well as Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8, with Microsoft highlighting the "bigger and easier to touch buttons and the comfortable spacing between controls" to accommodate their use on touch screen products.

Office Web App users can turn the touch mode on and off with the dedicated button shown in the above screenshot. The blog also goes over how touch screen users can edit a document in the software. Using the Editing View, a single tap on a touch screen brings up an insertion point in a document. A virtual keyboard then appears for typing in the document.

Office Web Apps also allows touch screen owners to use "grippers" to select and drag elements that need to be changed or deleted in a document. Users can also tap on a menu selection to bring up even more menu options and tap away from the menu on the screen to remove that menu when needed.