WPS Office for Android is a well-known and respected office application that is 100% compatible with Microsoft Office and offers an intuitive user interface on phones and tablets. WPS Office connects to your Cloud Storage easily and offers an interface that makes it simple and easy to edit your documents or create them no matter where you are. You don’t need to be connected to the internet and you can be assured of a touch-friendly interface. With over 300 Million users already, is this latest version of WPS Office something you should try out? Read on to see.
The app itself is a simple download from the Play Store and once you’ve got it installed, you can go ahead and launch it. Once you do so, you’ll see a view of your folders.
My next step was to get my Dropbox account set up, as this is the cloud storage I use to connect with other apps more than Drive. You can also add Google Drive and other cloud storage options from the menu item on the left-hand side, too.
To test WPS Office, I went ahead and used some of my previous writing for Android Headlines found in my Dropbox folder. A lot of the time, I’ll be talking about text documents here, of course. Right away I was very surprised to find a very touch-friendly user interface.
Right away, you’ll notice some menu headers that will be instantly familiar to anybody that’s ever used Microsoft Office or something similar. There are some neat extras here as well, like the ability to highlight things in the text using your stylus – for those using a Galaxy Note device – or just your finger to highlight or draw notes on your work.
Saving an article is made simple and the choice of where to save it to is divided neatly into cloud storage or local storage on your device.
It’s not just word documents that are handled easily with WPS Office, as you can easily export and then open PDF files and of course, edit Excel spreadsheets on the move as well.
You can also view presentations here as well, with the option to play them back to preview how they’d look during a presentation, too.
The whole interface is really easy to use and for most of my testing, I used a Nexus 9 and I had no problems with the layout on the 4:3 display or any Lollipop-related issues. A key feature I really loved to see here was the ability to see comments within a Microsoft Office document. My Chromebook was unable to do this, so I’m surprised to see it work so well here.
After spending some time with WPS Office, I can see why so many users are already using the app on a daily basis. Kingsoft’s latest version of the app brings a new UI that’s not only easy-to-use but a nice blend of Material Design with a touch of the Windows 8 look and feel. The result is something that blends in with even the latest version of Android and will feel familiar to keen Android users as well as Windows users. I mostly use LibreOffice on my Linux machine, and I never came across any issues with ODT files, either. I was impressed to see this was an app that feels stable and speedy with little to compromise on. All of the files and formats I threw at WPS Office were opened brilliantly and both my Google Drive and Dropbox accounts worked as advertized. All-in-all, I was very impressed and thanks to the Cloud Storage option, WPS Office is an easy replacement over Google Docs and with its easy-to-use and familiar UI I can see myself using this a lot more in the future.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – WPS Office ran nice and smoothly, and I didn’t have much issues at all with the cloud storage, either.
- Features (5/5) – For those looking for a Microsoft Office compatible suite, but don’t want to jump through hoops, WPS Office has everything that you could want and it’s somehow free to download.
- Theme (4/5) – I like the modern-looking theme as it feels fresh while familiar all at the same time. The top menu bars are also laid out similarly to how they are in Microsoft Office making the app easy to use right away.
- Overall (4/5) – A quality and easy-to-use Android app that ticks all of the Office boxes to make this great for personal or business use.
Pros
- 100% compatible with Microsoft Office and works great on tablets with an external keyboard.
- User interface is modern, yet familiar to those who spend time with Desktop office apps.
- No need to pay for any extra modules or anything like that.
- Integrates well with cloud storage like Drive and Dropbox with little hassle.
Cons
- No pinch-to-zoom or option to manually resize document views.
- Better viewing of Excel sheets would be nice.
There a lot of us out there that genuinely need a 100% Microsoft Office compatible suite and if you need one on Android, then this is one of the best options out there. Not only is it free, but it comes with easy integration with your existing cloud storage services and the UI is good-looking as well as familiar to a lot of users. If you need to edit while on the move and want something slick that’s also visually appealing, then look no further.
