Google acquired the company Quickoffice back in 2012. Quickoffice offers mobile editing of popular file formats found in the Microsoft Office suite. The purchase now lets Google users edit raw Office files on their mobile device without the need for conversion to Google’s format.
The Quickoffice service was only available for Google Apps Business customers before only recently reaching the rest of us at no cost. You can now use Quickoffice at no charge without being a Business customer.
The Quickoffice mobile app is easy to use for viewing and editing Microsoft Office files. The company did a wonderful job basically minimizing the Office suite for use on a small screen. All the necessary functions seem intact, and the great thing is using a Google account ensures the files are saved and synced with your Google account automatically.
Quickoffice is available for iOS and Android users who have a Google account. If you don’t have an account setup with Google you can still use Quickoffice but only in the Chrome browser.
Quickoffice Overview
Quickoffice for iOS
Download Quickoffice for iOS and then authenticate with your Google account to begin.
Editing Excel Files From an Email
Say you get a .XLSX Excel document sent as an attachment in an email. Click the open with button to the top right of the opened file in the mail app and then choose “Open in Quickoffice.”
The file will immediately load in Quickoffice and allow editing within moments. No conversion is necessary, as Quickoffice can load and edit raw Microsoft Office files.
Editing Excel files is nearly as intuitive in the Quickoffice app as it is when using the Excel program. Dragging to select multiple cells is as easy as grabbing the handles and defining a selection. It’s similar to selecting text in a paragraph.
Click a cell once to select it for editing or double-click it to change the text value. Select a whole column or row as you’d expect by just touching the letter or number. The bottom left menu button is for editing text. It’s here you can modify the font type or weight.
Align or wrap text from the “Alignment” tab and add borders around cells from the “Border” tab.
The “Cell” tab is for number formatting and color changes. For example, select a whole column and change the format to “Currency” to reflect the prices. Further details are contained within each formatting option like the number of decimal places to include.
The remaining functions from the main menu include inserting and deleting columns and rows, adding new sheets to the workbook, finding text in the document, and printing or saving the file to a PDF.
Saved files from the mail app go to the “My iPhone” section under the “Inbox” subfolder. Access this from the Quickoffice main window. From here you can use the move button (second from the right) on the bottom menu to move the file to Google Drive for access outside of your iPhone.
Every feature is nearly too exhaustive to list on its own, so we’ll move on to what Word documents look like in Quickoffice.
Editing Word Documents From Google Drive
We looked at Excel files contained as an email attachment so now we’ll take a glance at how Word documents from a Google Drive account are opened and edited. The following is a DOCX file. This hasn’t been converted to a Google format and therefore isn’t being altered in any way except with the changes made to formatting and text. It’s just as if you were using Microsoft Word to edit.
Open a file from your Google Drive from the main window by choosing your Google account to find the file. The file will then download locally so you can edit it from the phone.
The menu for Word documents is similar but not the exact same as with Excel files. The first option to the left is for Font/Paragraph formatting.
Additionally, from the left to right: Find & Replace/Word count, Track Changes/Add comments, Spell check, Undo, and Print.
To add a comment with Quickoffice, simply select the desired text and click “New Comment.”
Quickoffice for Android
Quickoffice for Android is also available free of charge. Download Quickoffice here.
Excel files for Androids can be edited in a similar fashion as the iPhone. You have full authority over functions and graphs alike.
Pull files from your Google account to edit. Once the editing has completed, the file will automatically upload back to your online account to make sure the most up-to-date file is always what you’re working with.
Quickoffice for Chrome
If you don’t have a Google account but still want to use Quickoffice, you can install the Chrome extension here.
Take note that this is called “Chrome Office Viewer” and doesn’t currently allow editing Microsoft Office files. However, you can view all the major MS Office files like DOC/DOCX, XLS/XLSX, and PPT/PPTX.
Final Thoughts
This is such an easy app to use, it actually feels like I’m using a miniature Microsoft Office. All the basic options I need are there, and everything saves to my Google account. You really couldn’t ask for an easier method of editing files on your mobile device.
