Microsoft Office Online gets even better with a significant update

Microsoft recently announced the first major update for Office Online, the web version of its productivity suite, comprised of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote. Thanks to your feedback, the Office team is now rolling out updates that improve the Reading View, file management and editing experiences.

Office Online is a rebranding of the Office Web Apps that is available for everyone for free at Office.com or as part of an Office 365 subscription, and is a light version of the desktop productivity suite, allowing users to do some light editing on the go. It's more powerful than you think, featuring Skype integration and machine learning for locating valuable content via 'Insights for Office'.

Here's a quick rundown of the improvements:

Get started editing faster: It's now easier to navigate through your most recent documents from your device or from your OneDrive, and it's now faster to open a blank document or a template. The experience is now more in line with the desktop and mobile versions of Office.
Add files to OneDrive from the toolbar: You can now make copies of documents you couldn't open for editing (view-only) that will be saved to your OneDrive with a new command that can be found on the toolbar.
More options to save and manage your files: The Save As options now include saving a copy to your OneDrive, Rename, Download a Copy (if it's stored on OneDrive), and Download as PDF.
Enhanced reading experience: When in Reading View, you have faster access on the toolbar for commands such as Edit, Print, Share and Comment, as well as Translate or Download.
Improved proofreading tools: Now there's a highlighted word count feature, and the proofreading service is improved.
Tell Me: Now you have a Tell Me search box on the ribbon so you can find what you’re looking for more easily.
Office On the Go: You can now open a document from Office Online in the corresponding Android app to have more functionality, the same way you can already do on the desktop.