Office for iPad is getting trackpad support later this year

Enlarge / The 12.9-inch 2020 iPad Pro with the Smart Keyboard and Magic Trackpad peripherals. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Reports from The Verge and TechCrunch both say that trackpad and mouse support is coming to Office for iPad. The update should be out by the end of the year. Both reports point to the fall as a possible release window, but Microsoft is still working out the exact details.

Trackpad and mouse support is the hot new thing for the iPad; the feature arrived in March with the release of iPadOS 13.4 and the new iPad Pro. It lets you pair a mouse or trackpad to an iPad, and you'll get a round mouse cursor on the display. Since this is an iPad, Apple has tried to re-imagine mouse input a bit, with fancy hover effects that change the mouse cursor shape, trackpad swipe gestures, and mouse movement that automatically snaps to the nearest button. Apps that use the standard iOS and iPadOS widgets get a lot of this functionality for free, but the custom elements in Microsoft's apps need a bit of special work to blend in with the new mouse functionality.

At first, the focus will be on Microsoft's new all-in-one Office app for the iPad, which combines Word, Excel, and Powerpoint into a single app. Mouse support will arrive on this app first, and The Verge says mouse support for the standalone office apps is "likely."

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