Release notes for Office for iOS (Insider builds)

Increase your productivity with split view in Outlook*

Take advantage of the larger screen on your iPad with the new multi-window support in Outlook. Open multiple messages or view your message list and calendar at the same time, and easily move between windows. Give it a try!

1. Open Outlook.

2. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open the dock.

3. On the dock, touch and hold the second app that you want to open, then drag it off the dock to the left or right edge of the screen.

Learn more.

* Requires iOS 13

Word 

Type with your voice

You can now use your voice to create content. Using voice to dictate content is faster and is more direct way of putting the thought onto the document. 

1. Tap Dictate to begin the dictation experience, and enable microphone permissions, if asked.

2. Tap the microphone button to start dictating.

Tips

• Speak clearly and conversationally. Insert punctuation by saying the name of the punctuation mark you want to add. You can also add tap the punctuation bar to add common punctuation as you dictate.

• If you make mistakes while dictating, fix it by deleting and speaking again. Alternatively, you can switch back the keyboard to fix such errors.

• If you see a lot of incorrect words being output or missed words, try speaking more deliberately.

• Try to avoid or eliminate background noise that may interfere with your voice.

• Dictate depends on a cloud-based speech service, so it's important to have an internet connection that's fast and reliable.

Excel

Cards View

Need an easier way to work with tables? Check out the Cards view.

1. Open an Excel worksheet or workbook that contains tables.

2. Select any cell in the table.

3. Click the Cards View button in the bottom pane.

PowerPoint

Better ink to shape diagramming

Go from free-form ink to Office shapes, text, or a mathematical expression in a couple of strokes. Notice that you can now move objects after they've been drawn and connected without fear of the losing the connection. 

1. Draw or write in digital ink.

2. Select your ink. You can either touch tap the ink directly or Tap Lasso Select and then drag to encircle the ink you want to convert.

3. Tap the action button  at the right edge of the encircled ink. Your ink is converted in place.

4. If the conversion is unsatisfactory, or if you want to see other possible variations, tap the More Suggestions button  to the right of the converted text.

The left-most option that pops up lets you revert to the ink you drew. The other options are variations of what you draw. Tap the one want, or press ESC to dismiss the pop-up window.

Outlook

Send it with style

Add a little pizzazz to your messages by applying some basic formatting. The new toolbar, conveniently located at the bottom of the Compose window, includes:

• Bold

• Italics

• Underline

• Bulleted lists

• Numbered lists

• Linking

• (3) Three font styles

Learn more.

Add optional attendees 

Add people to your events as optional or required.

Delegate Inboxes

Delegate mailboxes allow you to give permissions to manage your mail to someone else in your organization, allowing you to accelerate your productivity through others. 

Learn more 

Excel 

Look left, look right…XLOOKUP is here!

XLOOKUP is the successor to the iconic VLOOKUP function! It’s named for its ability to look both vertically and horizontally (yes it replaces HLOOKUP too!). In its simplest form, XLOOKUP needs just 3 arguments to perform the most common exact lookup (one fewer than VLOOKUP). Let’s consider its signature in the simplest form:

XLOOKUP(lookup_value,lookup_array,return_array)

• lookup_value: What you are looking for

• lookup_array: Where to find it

• return_array: What to return

Learn more.

Outlook

Meeting Insights > From Event Details Page

Always show up prepared. Emails and documents that are relevant to your meeting or appointment are included in the Calendar event description.

Suggested Replies

Give those tired thumbs a rest! Tap a suggestion to jump-start your reply for some emails. Don't worry, you'll have the chance to edit your response before it's sent. Suggested replies appear at the bottom of an email above the reply box. This feature is only available in English (en-us), Spanish (es-419), and Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR).

Word

Updated Alt Text Pane

Easily make your non-text content more accessible by adding captions in a single description field, or mark elements as decorative if they are only for aesthetics. Next time you add a shape or picture, select the Alt Text option and add a description or mark as decorative.

Excel

Updated Alt Text Pane

See above.

PowerPoint

Updated Alt Text Pane

See above.

November 25, 2019 

Version 2.32 (191125)

Outlook

Do not disturb for Outlook

Tune in or out when you need to the most! With the do not disturb feature, users can focus on their work emails during work hours without the distraction of personal email notifications, and visa versa for personal events - work notifications can be snoozed on demand or on a schedule. Also, users can choose to not be disturbed by work email notifications when they are in meetings so that they can give work meetings their full attention. Enable do-not-disturb from the left navigation menu by selecting the bell icon with "zz" in it.

Word

Read and reply on the fly to comments in Word from Outlook Notifications

Can't determine if your @mention notification is a formal ask, generic thank you, or a simple FYI? Now you can stay on top of your @mention notifications for Word with more context included in the notification. View the comment, the context it appears in, and even reply to the comment directly, right from the body of your email notification.

Outlook

Accept new time proposals

Did someone propose a new time for your meeting invitation? Now you can accept, reply, or edit their proposal while on the go.

Propose new time

Did someone schedule a meeting over your lunch break? Now you can quickly reply to the invitation with a new time proposal and add an optional message.

Classification, labeling, and protection

For Microsoft 365 customers who have configured their organization’s sensitivity labels in the Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance Center or the Microsoft 365 Compliance center, labels will be available to be applied in Outlook for iOS email messages.  People in your organization will be able to apply a pre-defined label to an email and have that label and any associated protection persist when sent to others. The different actions and protection, including encryption, will depend on the policies your organization defined in the Security & Compliance center.  

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Visio

New Privacy Controls

We are continuing our commitment to bring increased transparency and customer control over the data collected when you are using Office apps to keep our products and services secure, up to date, and performing as expected.

With this update, you are in control of cloud-connected experiences and have access to settings that allow you to disable and re-enable the following types of connected experiences:

• Experiences that analyze your content, such as PowerPoint Designer or Editor in Word.

• Experiences that download online content, such as PowerPoint Quick Starter or Office templates.

Learn more.

• To keep Office apps secure, up-to-date, and performing as expected as well as to continually make product improvements, we collect diagnostic data. There are two levels of diagnostic data:

• Required data is the minimum data necessary to help keep Office secure, up to date, and performing as expected on the device it’s installed on, such as information about whether update packages were downloaded and installed correctly.

• Optional data is only collected with your consent and helps improve Office for you, such as information about whether files are saved locally or to the cloud to help us better understand customers’ storage preferences.

Learn more.

You can change your privacy preferences at any time in Office preferences by clicking the app name in the menu bar, and then click  Preferences > Privacy.

NOTE: If you are signed in with a work or school account, the admin in your organization will decide whether these connected experiences are available to you.

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote

iOS 13 dark mode

Office gets easier to look at with support for iOS 13’s Dark Mode. Improved accessibility and an updated UI help keep you productive anywhere.

Outlook

Add location to meeting invite notifications

Know the places you'll go! Now you can see the meeting location in the notification when someone sends you an invitation to a meeting.

Improve security

S/MIME adds another layer of security and trust to your mobile experience, allowing you to have greater confidence with your email. With S/MIME, you can digitally sign and encrypt your emails, which ensures senders and recipients have the right credentials to view content on their mobile devices.

Smart move

Effortlessly move emails to folders using Outlook folder suggestions!

Viewing group calendars

Trouble keeping track of group calendars? You can now view your list of Joined Groups in the Calendar sidebar and select to overlay a specific calendar(s) with your personal calendar.

Create meetings and appointments in group calendars

Ready to get together? Create meetings and appointments on group calendars!

Outlook

Edit the Meeting Time of Recurring Events

Got recurring events? You can now update the meeting time for every event in a series at once!

Word 

Erase with precision

You love them in PowerPoint, so use them now in Word. With the small and medium erasers, you can remove just small bits of ink instead of entire strokes!  

Excel

Resolve comments

Get things off your list! When an existing thread no longer requires action, just select Resolve to collapse comments and let open items stand out. Resolved comments can be reopened at any time if you decide you want to add to the thread. 

Outlook

Shared Mailboxes

We heard you! You can now access Shared Mailboxes on your iOS device. Read and send emails, monitor messages, and view shared calendars on the go.

Mark as Unread

Need to flag just one message in a conversation or mark it as unread? No problem. Simply open the conversation, tap on ... in the top right corner of the message, and click Unread or Flag.

PowerPoint

Settle into Reading

Enjoy a reading-optimized view to browse through a presentation without having to first open it in Edit mode.

Excel

Dynamic arrays

Quickly type a formula that returns multiple values and watch them appear automatically in the neighboring cells. Build more capable spreadsheets, faster, with fewer formulas and less chance of error.

Learn more. 

Outlook

Quicker access to your files*

Find and access cloud files stored across your favorite cloud storage options: OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, SharePoint, Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, and Box.

^{* This feature is rolling out and may not be available immediately.}

Notifications on Apple Watch

We're making notifications more glance-able and helping you get where you need to be.

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Pick your destination

Use the Move command to easily move your cloud-based files from one folder to another.

Outlook

Make it a Teams meeting

When creating an event, you now have the option to a Teams meeting if your organization uses this provider to conduct online meetings.

Better and faster on Apple Watch

Pair your Apple Watch with your iPhone and enjoy the new lightning-fast Outlook app on your watch. Plus, we support the new Series 4 watch face!

Favorite People

Specify certain people as favorites and gain easier and quicker access to any and all information related to them.

Notifications from Favorite People*

Reduce the number of notifications by specifying that you only want to get alerts when people you have identified as Favorites contact you.

^{* Requires an Office 365 or Outlook.com account using the Microsoft sync technology}

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook

Redesigned product icons

Product icons for your favorite Office apps have been redesigned to reflect the simple, powerful, and intelligent Office experience.

Outlook

Calendar in living colors

See any color categories created in Outlook Desktop, Outlook for Mac, or OWA, reflected in your Calendar on your iPhone or iPad.

Calendar search

We heard you! Looking for an event? Your Calendar events are now showing as part of your search results so you can keep track of your busy life while on the go

Outlook

Never be late again

Find out when you need to leave for an upcoming appointment or meeting to arrive on time.

Learn more.

Capture and share in a snap

Increase productivity and collaboration by capturing, annotating and sharing images of anything from whiteboards to documents with few taps and apps.

PowerPoint

Better shapeshifting

Enjoy smoother Morph transitions authored in PowerPoint for Windows Desktop, PowerPoint for Mac, or PowerPoint Mobile.

Word

Office now supports Apple Pencil 2

Got the Apple Pencil 2? Go ahead and double-tap.

Quickly edit equations

Word now supports creating and editing equations. Write your math equations in linear format, for example a^2+b^2=c^2, and Word will convert it into a professional display format, a²+b²=c².

Learn more.

PowerPoint

Ink that sparkles

Add some whimsy while you're writing with ink. Just toggle on "Sparkle Animation" in the Pen options and you'll get sparkles as you write.

Office now supports Apple Pencil 2

Got the Apple Pencil 2? Go ahead and double-tap.

Outlook

Know when external recipients are included

Outlook alerts you with a MailTip when your message includes external recipients.

Learn more.

See your month in a glance

Show all events and appointments in your calendar across an entire month at a time.

Excel

Office now supports Apple Pencil 2

Got the Apple Pencil 2? Go ahead and double-tap.

Word

Get their attention with @mentions

Use @mentions in comments to let co-workers know when you need their input.

Excel

Collaborate effectively with comments and @mentions

Keep the conversation going right in your worksheet with the built-in reply box and let co-workers know that you need their input by using @mentions.