9 Office Mobile features that’ll make you more productive

Productivity! Some people have an innate ability to be as productive as humanly possible – the rest of us usually need a little help. And that’s where Office Mobile jumps in to save the day.

If you’re an Office user, Office Mobile can be a convenient tool to enhance your productivity exponentially. Being able to read, edit and create new Office files on your phone is a true timesaver, letting you get the job done even when you’re out of the office or home. We’ve gathered together a few tips that we think can help you get the ball rolling productivity-wise, especially for those of you that aren’t regular users of Office Mobile.

Use with OneDrive

To get the most out of Office Mobile, you should sign into your OneDrive account using your Windows Live ID on both your phone and computer. This way, you can create a new file on either device and access it from anywhere. This is great if you’ve got something that you want to read while on the move, or start working on a new project while away from your desk.

Create new documents and spreadsheets

You can create new Word and Excel files on your phone quickly and easily using Office Mobile. There are several formatting options to choose from, such as bold font and highlight, but you won’t have as many options as you do on a computer. You won’t want to use it to write your thesis (although Word Flow makes typing a breeze), but it’s a very cool tool for creating simple documents and spreadsheets while you’re out and about. If you save to OneDrive, you can always flesh things out a bit using a computer.

View Office files on your phone

This is the best function of Office Mobile, hands down. You can view your own files or ones that others have shared with you via OneDrive, which is a big boost to productivity for busy people. You can add comments and edit certain types of files as well, which we’ll get into next, but simply being able to view Office files can really come in handy when time is short.

Make edits on the go

Because Office Mobile is a scaled down version of Office, you won’t be able to do everything that you can do on your computer. You can, however, make smaller edits like fixing typos and adding comments. There are quite a few restrictions on what can be edited, which you can learn more about here. The upside is that if a file can’t be edited, you should still be able to read it.

Use the templates

Office Mobile offers a selection of super nifty templates that are useful for pretty much anyone. You can create an Agenda, Outline, or Report using Word, and Budget, Event schedule, or Mileage tracker using Excel. These are all great, but the Outline template is extra great for note-taking or summaries, especially for those of us that don’t like having to fiddle with formatting.

Copy and paste

See something in one of your Office Mobile files that you want to copy and paste elsewhere, such as an email, OneNote, or new file? It’s really simple: just tap the word, adjust the highlighted area to capture the text, and hit copy. Then you can navigate to wherever you want to add the text and hit paste. Voila! A second option is to tap and hold the text and select copy from the menu, and then paste away as usual.

Sharing is caring

You can share your newly-created documents and spreadsheets with others by just selecting the share option. It’s perfect for co-worker collaboration, as they can comment and edit to their heart’s content, either from their own phone or from their computer.

Make comments

It’s really easy to make a comment (whether it’s helpful or snarky is up to you), simply by tapping the word that you would like to attach the comment to and selecting the ‘comment’ option in the menu. Words that have been commented on will appear highlighted in blue, and tapping them will make the actual comment appear in the lower part of your phone’s screen.

Open protected files

To do this, tap the protected document and then tap ‘Yes’ to use the user name and password from the specified email account in the Need credentials message box. Once your credentials are verified, you’ll have access.

9 fantastic features that will help you get the most out of Office Mobile and get cracking on that productivity! Think we’ve missed any that warrant a mention? Let us know in the comments below.