Office for iPad gets mouse support

Do you have an iPad with an external keyboard? And do you use Office apps such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint? Then you will undoubtedly be happy with the new update that Microsoft is rolling out little by little from now on: the Office apps on the iPad get mouse and trackpad support.

Word, Powerpoint and Excel: mouse support

Do you have a Magic Keyboard with a built-in trackpad, or a separate keyboard with a mouse? Then you will benefit greatly from the update. Because this makes the operation of the Office apps on the iPad a lot more user-friendly.

In Microsoft Word, for example, until now you couldn’t click and drag to select a text, as you do with apps like Pages and Notes. That will soon be possible. In PowerPoint you can reduce or enlarge pictures and diagrams, in Excel you select multiple cells. You increasingly feel that you are just sitting behind your Mac.

Full mouse support

Since iPadOS 13.4, you can basically control the iPad with mouse and trackpad, without having to touch the screen. The mouse cursor on the iPad works slightly differently than on the Mac. You could call it context dependent. It also looks different: instead of an arrow, it is a sphere that changes shape if you point it at a button or menu, for example. Full mouse support already worked in apps from Apple, but more and more third-party apps are now ready for it too.