Freeing Quickoffice for Everyone

Posted by Alan Warren, Engineering VP, Google Drive

(Cross-posted on the Google Drive blog.)

Quickoffice has been a part of the Google family for over a year now and we’ve been focused on making it easier for you to get work done in Drive -- no matter what type of document you need to work with. Converting old files to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides is still the easiest way to share and work together, and we’re working every day to make the files you convert look better. But sometimes the people you work with haven’t gone Google yet, so we made the Quickoffice mobile apps free for Google Apps for Business customers. And today we’re making Quickoffice available for free to everyone: students, businesses, nonprofits, governments, consumers and anyone with a Google Account.

You can get the free Quickoffice app on Google Play and in the App Store. Simply sign in with your Google Account to start editing Microsoft Office Excel, Word and PowerPoint files on your iPhone, iPad, Android phone or tablet. Quickoffice is integrated with Google Drive so you can safely and easily store and access your files across devices. Users who currently have Quickoffice for Google Apps for Business can update their app to the new version and will notice a new icon. You’ll also see a number of new features including the ability to create .ZIP folders and view charts in Excel and PowerPoint files. Plus, the new app works across devices so you don’t have to worry about installing separate versions anymore when you go from using your phone to editing on your tablet.

While we’re on the topic of free stuff, if you sign in to your Google Account from the new Quickoffice app for Android or iOS by September 26, 2013, an extra 10GB of Google Drive storage will be added to your account for two years (look for it in the next few weeks.)

Note: Previous versions of Quickoffice have been removed from Google Play and the App Store. Learn more about how this affects customers currently using Quickoffice Pro and Quickoffice Pro HD. Users who have the Quickoffice for Google Apps for Business app will receive an update notification to upgrade to this new version.

Read More

Quickoffice on your Android and iPhone is here

Posted by Mark Beaton, Quickoffice Product Manager

One of the easiest ways to share old files and collaborate with others is to convert them to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. However, not everyone you work with has gone Google yet. So to help, Google Apps for Business can already edit Microsoft Office files using Quickoffice on an iPad, and starting today they can do the same on iPhone and Android devices. From Word to Excel to Powerpoint, you can make quick edits at the airport or from the back of a taxi and save and share everything in Google Drive.

In addition to bringing Quickoffice to new devices, it’s also now easier to find and use your Drive files from within the Quickoffice app. Sign in with your Google Apps for Business account and your Drive folders view will now include Shared With Me, Starred, Recent and any subfolders.

And in case you didn’t know, iPad and iPhone users can open and edit Office files directly from the Drive app. Just open Drive and select the file, make edits using Quickoffice and save it back to Drive.

Google Apps for Business users can download Quickoffice right now from the App Store and Google Play. We hope this makes it easier to work from anywhere on any device.

Read More

Quickoffice + Google Apps = better document conversion and an iPad app

Posted by Jonathan Rochelle, Director of Product Management, Google Drive

Since the Quickoffice team joined Google a few months ago, we’ve been working to make it easier for you to work with your legacy Microsoft Office files -- both by converting them to Google documents and by editing them directly in Quickoffice.

Better conversion to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides
You’ve always had the option to convert documents from popular formats into Google Docs, where you can share and work together in real-time. In the past few months, we’ve incorporated Quickoffice conversion technology into this process so your Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint files look even better when you convert them to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, respectively.

Left: Old conversion of Excel to Google Sheets

Right: Improved conversion after integrating Quickoffice technology

Using Quickoffice to edit Office files on your iPad
Converting old files to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides is the easiest way to share and work together, but perhaps not everyone you work with has gone Google yet. To complement what you can do with Google documents, we’re also making it easier for you to make quick edits to Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint files without conversion. Starting today, the Quickoffice iPad app is available for free to all Apps for Business customers, and iPhone and Android versions are on the way. With the app, you can open and edit any Office files you’ve stored in Google Drive right from your iPad.

Whether you’re converting Office files to Google documents or you just need to make a couple quick edits without converting, it should be easy to get work done whenever you need to, on any device. Stay tuned for more document conversion and mobile editing improvements in 2013.

Read More