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The missing features in Office for Windows Phone 7

Posted on 14 Jun 2011 at 12:10

Simon Jones takes a closer look at Office Mobile for Windows Phone 7 - and finds it's missing a few features

Microsoft’s examples seem to have been specifically designed for the small screen and gloss over most restrictions or imperfections: in the real world, you’re more likely to stumble across these problems when people design workbooks for a 24in screen and then email them to you on your mobile.

PowerPoint, OneNote and SharePoint

Most formatting in a PowerPoint presentation is rendered correctly on the mobile, and sensible compromises are made in the majority of cases, but I have encountered examples where text has become invisible because the mobile device can’t handle the formatting, or it becomes obscured by another object on the slide.

You can edit text or notes on slides, but it isn’t easy. You have to tap to edit a slide and tap again to edit a text block within it – you can then edit the text on a separate screen, tap a tick icon to save those changes, and tap another tick to save the slide.

As with Outlook, the formatting options are non-existent, and there’s no way to create a new slide. I know PowerPoint is a complicated application, but PowerPoint Mobile appears to have been dumbed down to the point of imbecility.

OneNote limitations

I love OneNote on a PC: it’s a great application for taking notes, gathering research and collaborating with people.

You don’t get fancy formatting options, but you do get solid features for creating freeform notes, lists, tables, basic drawings and for searching those notes and marking them up with various flags. OneNote Mobile, however, has been severely cut down.

Formatting merely consists of bold, italic, underline, strikeout or yellow highlight. There are no flags, not even the To Do squares that can be ticked or unticked.

You can create numbered or bulleted lists, change the indentation of paragraphs, and insert pictures and voice notes. However, the lack of flags, or even the ability to search your notes for where you wrote about some topic, makes OneNote Mobile’s utility severely limited.

Sharepoint connections

You can get to any Office document stored in your SharePoint intranet sites, either through a Wi-Fi connection to your company’s network or, if the site is published on the internet, via an HTTPS secure connection over your mobile data network.

You can browse the document libraries and folders and open the documents directly. Alternatively, you could mark them to be permanently synchronised with your phone so you always have access to them.

Any document can be pinned to the Start Page for instant access, and the Office Hub shows you the documents you last used so you can get back to them quickly.

You can send people a link to a document via email rather than sending them a copy of the whole document, which drastically reduces the size of the emails and ensures that everyone works from the same document.

All-in-all, while Office Mobile on Windows Phone 7 shows promise, it isn’t a patch on what it could be as there are far too many features missing that were in Office Mobile for Windows Mobile 6.5, 6.1, 6 and even 5 – and that’s a great shame.

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User comments

Editing text...

Simon, pressing and holding your finger against the screen brings up the "I"-bar, which allows you to locate the cursor much more accurately. This works in much the same way as the magnifying glass cursor locator on the iPhone.

I like the way the e-mail indicator displays only how many e-mails have been received since I last looked. That is more useful to me than how many I haven't read. Going into the e-mail still shows the unread messages in a different colour.

The lock screen shows the next couple of appointments, so I hadn't noticed that the calendar tile only displays the last entry.

I think the rest are pretty much fair comment - with the exception of creating e-mails. To be honest, I don't want to faff around on such a small display trying to get the formatting right, I want to bash out a short reply and be done with it... Plus I come from the old school, where people think it is impolite to send a "formatted" e-mail with different fonts, tables etc.

In Linux, I used to have Kontakt set to display only text - with replies listing all the html tags of the original mixed in with the text. Most people quickly got the message and stopped trying to send me rich e-mails. :-D

I haven't really done much with Office itself on my WP7, but I much prefer WP7 in general to my old WM6.1 Touch Pro and my iPhone 3GS...

By big_D on 14 Jun 2011

Different design paradigms

It's fairly obvious that things would at least initially get dumbed down. Windows Mobile was designed with the precision of a stylus and resistive screen in mind whereas windows phone is a finger-tip capacitive screen based platform. There's no way the intricacies required can otherwise be achieved.

By TheBigM72 on 14 Jun 2011

I have outlook reminders set up. When I put something into my calendar with a reminder it syncs up with Windows Live and also Outlook. Maybe I'm missing what you mean.

I prefer the mobile number coming first as I generally never phone any land lines any more.

By TimoGunt on 14 Jun 2011

Don't forget "Mango"

Overall a very fair review of the product.
As you say, this really is a "V1", and I suspect it needed to be shoved out the door quickly.

The next (first "proper") update to WP7 comes in a few months and looks likely to address many of the issues you raise but probably raising many new ones too!

I'd like to see the post-mango version of this article...

By wittgenfrog on 15 Jun 2011

Outlook

Sorry, am I missing something. I cannot even see Outlook on my Phone, only Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Onenote. Would dearly love to be able to synchronise my Outlook instead of just download POP3 email.

By skeetboy on 16 Jun 2011

Outlook

By skeetboy on 16 Jun 2011

skeetboy

Outlook on Windows 7 IS the email application. Look on the Start Screen for the Outlook logo.
If you just have POP email then that's all you get. Other mail account types (IMAP or Exchange) give better integration with Contacts and Calendar as well. It depends on what is supported by your mail server.

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 16 Jun 2011

TimoGunt

I think you're referring to my comment about the lack of TASK synchronisation. Yes, you get reminders about appointments but that is CALENDAR, not Tasks.

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 16 Jun 2011

big_D

Yes, I found the I bar cursor a week or two after I wrote this article. Another bit of UI that is completely hidden from the user until they find it by accident.

I would like to be able to use italics or bold (or colour) in an email from my phone so I can emphasize some words without having to resort to CAPITALS which is akin to shouting.

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 16 Jun 2011

Outlook

Thanks Simon, but there is nor ever has been an Outlook logo on the start screen! Perhaps you mean that it only works with an exchange server or BPOS or Office365?

By skeetboy on 16 Jun 2011

Outlook

I did think that you were trying to say that it would synchronise with Outlook on my PC - which just gets POP3 emails.

By skeetboy on 16 Jun 2011

Outlook Icon

You can see the outlook icon on this page:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/howto/
wp7/default.aspx
in the second image under the heading "Featured Topics".
If you see "Mail" with an envelope icon instead of Outlook that probably means your email server can't serve up the contacts and calendar items.
We use Exchange Server so have no need for POP or IMAP accounts.
Windows Phone 7 does not use ActiveSync to connect to your PC. It uses Zune for file sync but email (contacts & calendar) go directly to and from you Mail server (eg Exchange, Hotmail, GMail, etc) over WiFi or mobile data connection.

By Simon_Jones_RWC on 16 Jun 2011

if you can't see your outlook mailbox you probably haven't set it up yet.
Settings - email & accounts - + add an account - Outlook

By TimoGunt on 17 Jun 2011

From an old old Win mob. User...

With regard Outlook:

Pocket Informant was always the app of choice. It brings a great interface for Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Contacts.

Of course it all syncs with Outlook on the PC.

Years ago when Win Mob was truly clunky it gave a useability still unsurpassed IMHO

They have stopped supporting Windows... So they made their last Win Release free... Don't know if it runs on WinMob 7

By Kevin000 on 28 Jun 2011