Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Mac News > Office for iPad to get printing, serve as basis for Office for Mac

Office for iPad to get printing, serve as basis for Office for Mac
Thread Tools
NewsPoster
MacNN Staff
Join Date: Jul 2012
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 8, 2014, 02:44 PM
 
The recently-launched Office for iPad will get printing support "in due course," according to a Reddit AMA conducted by members of the software's engineering team. The team says it is also considering mathematical notation in OneNote, and working on implementation of comments and add/change conditional formatting in Excel. Something the suite won't support, though, is third-party Office apps, despite the fact that Microsoft allows desktop developers to hook into Office 365. Microsoft blames the situation on Apple's App Store policies, which block apps from installing code other than their own.

Significantly, the team says that the next version of Office for Mac is in development, and uses code shared with Office for iPad, meaning that iPad coding didn't create any Mac delays. The iPad suite did take a long time to arrive however, which the engineers blame on perfectionism and coping with technical limitations. One of them notes that when programming Word, the app would at one stage run out of memory on an iPad if it opened a document with too many attached comments. Solving problems like these forced Microsoft to re-architect some features, the person says.
( Last edited by NewsPoster; Apr 8, 2014 at 02:44 PM. )
     
rytc
Senior User
Join Date: Jan 2001
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 8, 2014, 03:47 PM
 
It was frequently reported that the real reason it took so long to be released was arguments in management about releasing an iPad Office before a Windows Phone version, and the push that it be an exclusive for Windows Phone. But I guess saying that perfectionism was the delay sounds better in a press release.
     
Charles Martin
Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Maitland, FL
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 8, 2014, 05:18 PM
 
Yes I totally buy that Microsoft engineers are perfectionists.

ISTR a working version of Office on iPad being leaked a couple of years ago, though I'm sure that was far from polished, maybe just an alpha. I'm glad to hear that they had to re-work some of their ancient codebase, that's heartening news for the next Office for Mac release.
Charles Martin
MacNN Editor
     
pairof9s
Senior User
Join Date: Jan 2008
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 9, 2014, 09:26 AM
 
What a big paradox by Microsoft in stating "perfectionism" in developing Office for iPad yet without having printing capabilities! It's not like the feature is unsupported by Apple and hundreds of other developers (and has been for 3-4 years), yet Microsoft never found the capability or developers to bring about this basic functionality of a productivity suite. Rubbish!!
     
   
 
Forum Links
Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Top
Privacy Policy
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 10:36 AM.
All contents of these forums © 1995-2017 MacNN. All rights reserved.
Branding + Design: www.gesamtbild.com
vBulletin v.3.8.8 © 2000-2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.,