In line with Microsoft’s quest to put Office everywhere, Microsoft has rolled-out preview versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Android phones. This follows last January’s official release of Office for Android tablets, and prior to that Office apps for iPhone, which have proved to be a hit with consumers. By joining the Microsoft Office for Android community you can become a tester today for free.

In a blog Microsoft stated that feedback was “critical” to building the best product when it came to Android tablets, and so the company intends to soak-in tester pros and cons before it goes ahead with an official release of Office for Android phone. Jared Spataro, general manager for the Office 365 marketing team, wrote, “Bringing these apps to Preview first provides you with an early look at the apps, while enabling us to gather critical user feedback helping us shape and improve the app experience on a wide range of Android phones across the world.”

Microsoft says expect a familiar office experience, except of course the apps have been optimized for touch screens. This includes putting all the “content in the right place”, such as having the menu at the bottom of the screen where your thumbs can do all the work.

While the mobile apps won’t contain as many features as Office for desktop Microsoft has said that the apps are more for collaboration and sharing on the go, designed for people whose productivity needs have to be taken care of away from the office desk. For example, it’s unlikely you’ll be writing long drafts of text on your phone, but reviewing documents and making edits on the go could be a life-saver for some people. Once changes have been made, share the docs in the cloud, either in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, SharePoint, Dropbox, Google Drive or Box, and move on. All changes can be tracked, and comments seen, by those collaborating on documents.

The company has said that the Office Mobile app for Android will stay in the app store, and more will be said about that app when the Office for Android phone apps become available to the general public later this year.

Requirements for the Office app consist of your Android phone running at least Android KitKat 4.4.x and devices must have 1 GB of RAM or higher.

Photo credit: Microsoft