Microsoft detailed an update to its Office for iOS apps that tightens the integration that Outlook has with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The new versions have been on Apple’s App Store since last week, but we’re only hearing about them now because Microsoft’s Office team apparently can’t write as quickly as it can code.
Outlook for iOS now opens Office documents sent as attachments directly in their respective iOS apps. The basic viewer hasn’t been scrapped just yet: It still opens if you haven’t download the corresponding Office app, and provides an app store link to do so.
You can make edits right in the document and send it back. After you’ve finished making your changes, a single tap on the Back button closes the document and returns you to Outlook, automatically adding the now-updated file as an attachment in your reply.