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The ability to add to the home screen an MS Word or Excel file is not present in the MS Office app. There is no separate Word or Excel app to download. I have been using this feature on my Samsung Note devices for some years and it has been a very important to me. It was basically the same as a shortcut on the desktop on my Surface Pro.
Why would this important "workflow" feature not be available on the device MS says was designed for "productivity"?
I really can't believe there are features from MS own apps that are not available on the Duo. ��
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
I downloaded the .apk for Excel and Word from this site and it works as expected! You need to enable developer options and USB debugging to get the files copied onto the phone.
I successfully created a group for Word and Excel and it opens both on separate screens. You are also able to pin individual files to the home screen
The Surface Duo launch required investment in our apps to ensure they could fully utilize the benefits of the dual-screen form factor. As we explored how best to do this for the Office experiences, we decided to focus our investment for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint exclusively in the Office mobile app. The Office app was designed to include the full Word, Excel, and PowerPoint mobile experiences, additional capabilities including the various PDF and Lens features, and an integrated experience that means fewer apps to use and requires far less storage on the device
Easily the best thing I did on my Surface Duo since getting it. Thank you. Excel would not open documents in the Office App. It would transition to the other screen as if it was opening and then disappear. I'd much rather use the real apps.
I can appreciate the work that was done to unify and optimize the apps under one Office app. It makes sense to me.
However my point was the ability to add a shortcut to the home screen for a Word or Excel file. I have been using this feature on my Note devices for some years and I know it is found only within the Word or Excel app.
Please convey my request for this to be added to the Office app for the Surface Duo. It really does make a world of difference for me since at times when I need to get to a specific file with one tap without having to open the Office app and look for it in there.
Hoping this will come to a future update soon. :)
Wow! Thank you very much for the tip.
I downloaded the apk and it works perfectly! I'm able to get the separate Word app with the feature to "add to home screen". Awesome!
Microsoft should have allowed us to do this.
