Microsoft’s Word mobile app passed a milestone over the summer: the Android version has been downloaded more than one billion times, according to the Google Play Store. Apple doesn’t provide download figures on its App Store, but with more than 608,000 ratings, the iOS version of Word is clearly popular as well.
On either platform, the app lets you create and edit Word documents on your phone or tablet for free. Typing on a phone isn’t the most comfortable way to compose a long document, but the mobile app can be very handy for starting new docs or making quick edits to existing ones while you’re on the go.
The app has two requirements: First, you need to sign in with a Microsoft user account, which can be a free account (such as one for Outlook.com) or an Office 365 account, which you or your company pays a subscription fee for. Second, the app installs only on phones or tablets with screens that measure less than 10.1" diagonally.
This guide walks you through the major functions of the Word app and shows you how to share your Word document with other people to collaborate on. We’ve focused on the Android phone interface here; if you have a very large phone or tablet your screen might look a little different but should work similarly. The iOS app also has similar features and functions; we’ll note where the steps for using it differ.
Editor’s note: At its 2019 Ignite conference in November, Microsoft announced a new Office mobile app that combines the functionality of its separate Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps. The all-in-one app has been unstable in our tests so far; until it’s out of beta, we recommend sticking with the current apps.
How to open or create a document
When you launch the Word app, you see a screen that lets you access documents you’ve already created or start a new one. Along the bottom of the screen are three buttons for accessing existing documents:
Viewing recently opened documents in the Word for Android app.
Recent: Tap this to see a list of the documents that you’ve most recently opened in the Word mobile app, Word Online, or a desktop version of Word that is connected online.
Shared: Tap this to see a list of Word documents that other people have shared with you. You can open these documents in the Word app.
Open: Tap this to open a Word document that you have saved on your phone, in OneDrive, in SharePoint, or in another cloud storage service. The Word app supports Google Drive, Box, Dropbox and others if you have the respective app for it installed on your phone.
Whichever screen you use to access documents, just click any document in the list to open it in the app.
To create a new document in the Android app, tap the New icon (a page with a "+" symbol) on the upper-right corner of the screen. In iOS, the New button is at the far left of the row of buttons running along bottom of the home screen.
You’re taken to a screen where you can start a new blank document or pick a template for a type of document, such as a to-do list, outline, resume, business paper or business letter.
In the Android app, you choose where to store a new document as you create it.
Here the steps diverge slightly depending on whether you’re using the Android or iOS app. At the top of the New screen in Android, “Create in” indicates where your new document will be saved: OneDrive, another cloud storage service, or your smartphone. Tap the drop-down to open a menu to pick where you want your document to be saved, then select the type of document you want to create.
When you open a document or create a new one on an Android phone, it's presented in Edit mode with toolbars along the top and bottom of the screen. (More on that in a moment.) The document’s name appears at the top of the editing screen. To change it, tap the current name, then enter a new name for it.
Tap the document's title to name (or rename) it.
The AutoSave feature, which automatically saves the document as you work in it, is enabled by default for all documents in the Android app. You can turn it off under Settings, but we recommend leaving it on.
To create a new document in iOS, you first select the type of document you want to create on the New screen. Then, when document opens in the editing screen, you choose where to save it by tapping the three-dot button in the upper-right corner of the screen, tapping the Save button on the next screen, and choosing a document name and save location. This turns on AutoSave for the document. You can toggle it off on the save screen if you like, but we recommend leaving it on.
Starting a new document (left) and naming and choosing where to save it (right) in the iOS app.
To save a document under a different name in the iOS app, tap the same three-dot button in the upper-right corner of the editing screen and select Save a Copy.
How to compose or edit a document
Although the interfaces have a somewhat different look and feel, composing and editing Word documents is similar in the Android and iOS apps.
The basic editing screen in Word for Android (left) and iOS (right).
As mentioned previously, when you open or create a document on an Android phone, it opens in a screen with toolbars running along the top and bottom. The top toolbar contains general commands for working with the document, while the bottom one has controls for formatting text. At first there’s no onscreen keyboard, but if you tap in the body of the document, a keyboard appears below the bottom toolbar.
On an iPhone, only the top toolbar shows when you open a document. Tap anywhere in the body area to make both the formatting toolbar and the keyboard slide up from the bottom of the screen.
On devices with larger screens, the interface looks more like the Word desktop app, with a simplified Ribbon interface above the document body. The tabs in the Ribbon (Home, Insert, Draw, Layout, Review, and View) are the same as the options found in the expanded bottom toolbar in the phone apps (see below), but with more screen space available, they can be visible all the time.
If you have a very large phone or tablet, you might see the Ribbon interface at the top of the screen instead of the top-and-bottom toolbar setup found on smaller phones.
Using the top toolbar
In the top toolbar in both Android and iOS, you’ll find these buttons:
Show Commands: This icon looks like the letter A with a pencil over it. Tapping it expands the bottom toolbar up to reveal more buttons for formatting text and paragraphs.
Find: Tap the magnifying glass icon to open a search toolbar, which you can use to search for text in your document. Tapping the gear icon to the left of the search box opens a menu with search options such as “Find and Replace” or “Match Case.”
It's easy to search for a word or phrase in your document.
Mobile View/Print Layout: This icon, located to the right of the Find icon in Android and to the left of it in iOS, toggles between Mobile View and Print Layout. In Mobile View, the text and other items in your document are presented in larger sizes to make it easier for you to view and edit. Print Layout is what your document looks like as a page formatted for printing. Generally, you want to edit or read your document in Mobile View when you’re using the mobile app.
Print Layout (left) shows you what your document will look like printed; Mobile View (right) makes it easier to read as you're editing the document on your phone.
Undo: Tap this to undo the last edit or change that you did to your document.
The Android app also has a Checkmark icon at the left end of the top toolbar. Tapping this puts your document into View mode, meant for when you want to simply read the document without editing it. The bottom toolbar (and keyboard, if it’s present) goes away, and there are two new icons on the top toolbar: a Pencil icon that takes your document back to Edit mode, and a Share icon for sharing your document with others to collaborate on. (Sharing is described later in this story.)
View mode removes the bottom toolbar for a cleaner view when you want to read but not edit a document.
In iOS, the Share icon is in the top toolbar from the get-go. To invoke View mode, simply tap the keyboard icon at the right end of the bottom toolbar; when you do, the bottom toolbar and keyboard slide out of sight.
Finally, both versions have a three-dot icon at the far right of the top toolbar. Tapping it opens a menu containing various functions and settings for the document, including printing it, exporting it to another format, sharing it with others to collaborate on, and accessing older versions of it. We’ll cover those last two features later in this guide.
Using the bottom toolbar
The buttons in the bottom toolbar format text that you select in your document. Only a few commands appear by default, but you can scroll through the toolbar horizontally to see several more commands.
Tapping the last button (in Android it has a small triangle; in iOS it’s another three-dot button) expands the toolbar, revealing more buttons for formatting text. (When the bottom toolbar expands, the top one disappears to make more room onscreen.) You can scroll down through the expanded toolbar to find even more options for formatting text and paragraphs.
Scroll through the expanded toolbar to find more text formatting commands, or tap Home and choose another menu option to see commands in other categories.
Tapping the Home button on the left side of the expanded toolbar opens a menu that includes several options roughly corresponding to the Ribbon tabs in the Word desktop app:
Home: This menu item contains the most commonly used text and paragraph formatting commands, including text size and font; bold and italic; bulleted and numbered lists; and so on.
Insert: Tap this to insert a picture, table, shape or text element (such as endnotes, footers, footnotes, headers, and page numbers). You can also add blank pages, comments or web links.
Draw: This brings up a simple drawing tool that lets you use your phone's touchscreen to sketch on your document.
The Insert menu (left) lets you insert pictures, tables, footnotes and more, while the Draw menu (right) gives you tools for drawing or writing on the document.
Layout: Here you adjust the margins, orientation (landscape or portrait), and paper size of your document.
Review: The panel that opens when you tap this is particularly useful for a document that you are collaborating with other people on. You can scroll through the Review panel to go over and respond to comments made by collaborators. Spell-check and word-count tools are here, too.
Use the Review menu for reviewing collaborators' comments, using spell-check, and more.
This panel also lets you review and accept (or reject) edits and other changes that have been made to your document by collaborators. However, if you’re not already an Office 365 subscriber you have to pay to activate this function by subscribing to an Office 365 plan, which starts at $7 per month.
View: This option gives you different ways to view your document, such as in the aforementioned Mobile View or Print Layout; or formatted at 100% or to the width of your phone’s screen. You can also set the app to view more than one page of your document at once on your phone screen.
To shrink the expanded toolbar back down (and have the top toolbar reappear), click the button with the downward-facing triangle to the right.
How to share a document
Since the release of Word 2016 a few years back, Microsoft has been touting its collaboration capabilities — so it’s no surprise that you can share documents and collaborate on them with other people via the Word mobile app as well. If you want to share a document for collaboration, Microsoft’s OneDrive app for Android or iOS must be installed on your phone and the document must be stored in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business or SharePoint.
Note that in order for anyone to view or edit your document (whether they have a privately emailed or public link to it) they must have a Microsoft services user account.
To share a document from View mode in the Android app, tap the Share icon (the arrow over the square) in the top toolbar. If your document is in Edit mode, tap the three-dot icon in the top toolbar and from the menu that appears, tap Share. Either way, the Share panel scrolls up from the bottom of the screen.
In iOS, tap the Share button in the top toolbar, and on the Share screen that appears, tap Invite People.
In either version of the app, enter the email address or name of the person in your phone's contacts with whom you want to share your document. To invite multiple people in Android, separate their names or email addresses with commas. In iOS you click the plus sign at the end of the address field to add each person.
If you want to allow the recipient(s) to edit your document, check the Can edit box in Android or turn on the Can Edit toggle switch in iOS; uncheck the box or turn the switch off if you want them to be able to view it without editing it. You can optionally type a message, and then tap the Share button in Android or the Send link in iOS to send them an email, which will have a web link to your document on OneDrive.
You can share a document for online collaboration privately (left), or choose to create a public sharing link or send the document as an attachment (right).
Alternatively, there are two other ways to share your document from the Share panel:
- Tap Share as link in Android or Copy Link in iOS to copy a public link for your document on OneDrive; the link is copied to your phone's clipboard so you can send it via email, text, chat, or other means. You can pick from two types of links: one that allows other people to edit your document and one that only allows them to view it.
- Tap Share as attachment in Android or Send a Copy to forward your document in an email as an attached .docx file or PDF. If you choose this option, recipients will receive their own offline copy of the document and won’t be able to collaborate on it with you or others in real time.
How to collaborate on a document
If a collaborator is making edits to a shared document at the same time as you, you’ll see a colored cursor flag at the spot they are in the document. Tap the cursor flag to see who the collaborator is.
You can easily see when others are working on a shared document simultaneously.
Adding and viewing comments
Instead of making changes right in a document, many people prefer to add comments when they’re collaborating. Comments can be attached to a word, phrase, or paragraph without cluttering up the document body or changing the original text.
There are two ways to add comments to a document:
Select the text or other items in the document that you want to comment on. This brings up a toolbar above or below your selection. Tap New Comment on the right end of this toolbar. A comment entry box scrolls up from the bottom of the screen. Enter a brief comment and tap the right arrow.
You can add a comment to a document by selecting some text and tapping New Comment in the floating toolbar.
You can also add comments from a couple places in the expanded bottom toolbar if you’ve got that open: In the document body, highlight to select text or other items, or tap to put the cursor in a spot in your document where you want a comment to go. In the expanded toolbar’s menu, select Insert, scroll down the panel and tap Comment. Alternatively, you can go to the Review menu item, scroll down and select New Comment.
Either way, the comment entry box scrolls up from the bottom of the screen. Enter a brief comment in the panel’s entry box and tap the right arrow.
You can also insert a comment from the Insert or View menu in the expanded bottom toolbar.
When you or a collaborator adds a comment to text or another item, a small comment icon appears to the right of it in the body of the document. Tap this icon; a panel scrolls up from the bottom of the screen. It shows you the comment, who wrote it and when.
Tap the tiny comment icon to the right of the document body to view a comment.
You can add a reply by typing in the Reply entry box. If the document belongs to you, you can tap the three-dot icon next to a comment to delete it or mark it as resolved.
In the comment review panel, you can see any other comments that are in your document by tapping the back or forward arrows to go through them. As mentioned earlier in the story, you can also access all the comments in a document via the Review section of the expanded bottom toolbar. Tap the comment icon with a back or forward arrow on it to bring up the aforementioned comment review panel.
How to access older versions of a document
Sometimes you or a collaborator take a wrong turn when editing a document, and you wish you could go back to an earlier version of it. Happily, you can — as long as AutoSave is enabled for the document.
Tap the three-dot icon in the top toolbar, and on the menu or screen that appears, tap History. The History panel scrolls up from the bottom of the screen. It lists the current and previous versions of your document that were automatically saved by the Word app, including the date and time they were saved and who last modified them.
If you don't like the edits made to a document, it's easy to roll back to an earlier version.
Tap an older version to view it in the main window. If you want to save this older version under a different file name, tap the double-page icon in Android or Save a Copy in iOS on the upper-right of the screen. If you want to replace the current version of your document with this older version, instead tap the dotted-square icon in Android or Restore in iOS.
Now you know the key features of the Word mobile app, there’s nothing holding you back from editing documents wherever you are.
Don’t miss our collection of Microsoft cheat sheets for help with other Office and Windows apps.