

"When you create a Document Provider extension, your users can use the Document Picker to open and edit documents directly in Office without creating a duplicate copy of the file."Ī second part of the Cloud Storage Partner Program will allow third-party services to integrate with Office Online - the Web-based versions of Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint and Word - with their own browser-based apps. "Office for iOS integrates with the open operation," Microsoft said. Other cloud providers will have to work under the same limitation, and will not be able to call on iOS 8's Document Provider API for other features within Office, including document importation, exportation and movement. There, Microsoft noted that it relied on iOS 8's App Extension API (application programming interface), but added support only for the "Open" functionality. That fit with what Microsoft said on its Cloud Storage Partner Program website. Excel, PowerPoint and Word also did not offer iCloud as an option in their "Add a Place" pop-up dialogs, as they do Dropbox.ĭocuments already in iCloud can be opened and edited, then saved with changes back to Apple's service. For example, there is no way to open a document stored on OneDrive then later save it to iCloud, nor was Computerworld able to save newly-created files to iCloud. Today's implementation of iCloud support in the iOS Office apps is clumsier than for Dropbox. Microsoft added support for Dropbox last year after the two companies announced a partnership that let users connect to their Dropbox account from the Office mobile apps - not only those on the iPad but also on the iPhone and Android-based smartphones and tablets - and also allowed them to open documents directly from the Dropbox app on iOS and Android. To retrieve documents from iCloud, users of the apps must tap the "More" button in each app's Open panel. iCloud is a rival to Dropbox, and more importantly for Microsoft, the latter's OneDrive.

Excel, PowerPoint and Word - the three core apps of Office for iPad - were all updated Tuesday to add support for Apple's cloud-based storage and sync service.
