How to take advantage of Microsoft Word on your Galaxy smartphone

This is one of a trio of user guides for getting the most out of Microsoft Office Mobile on your Samsung Galaxy smartphone. Be sure to explore our tips for PowerPoint and Excel to maximize your mobile productivity.

If you’ve ever wished you could use your Microsoft Office apps as easily on your mobile device as you do on your laptop or desktop computer, you’re in luck. With the new integrated Office Mobile app, Samsung and Microsoft have brought Office productivity to the Samsung Galaxy.

Office Mobile comes natively integrated on the latest flagship smartphones from Samsung. Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Excel documents can all be created and edited in one powerful and intuitive application. The integrated approach means you get a single view of all recent documents you’ve opened, regardless of file type, making it easier to locate exactly the document you want on the spot. Meanwhile, OneDrive integration gives you secure and instant access to all of your important files in the cloud. Smart assistants also offer suggestions to help you stay organized, streamlining your workflow as you go.

Need to track changes or add comments to a document you’re editing while en route to that next meeting? Easy. Want to make some quick annotations to a PowerPoint while you’re waiting for your flight or even live during a client presentation? You can do it in a snap with your S Pen. You can keep working when you’re away from a computer, efficiently wrapping up your tasks even as you’re on your way to your next appointment.

With these tips and tricks for Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel, you can start getting the most out of Microsoft Office on your Galaxy smartphone right away. And they become even more powerful when combined with Samsung DeX, which lets you power a full desktop experience from your phone. Or, with DeX for PC, you can easily transfer files between devices and multitask by running mobile and desktop applications on one device.

Microsoft Word tips and tricks

When you open up Word on your Galaxy smartphone, you might wonder where to begin. How can you find all those features you would normally use on your PC? They’re closer than you may think. You’ll see a gray toolbar at the bottom of your screen that gives you quick access to some of Word’s most helpful features, such as bold and italic formatting, bulleted lists and indenting.

You’ll also notice, however, that there is a small arrow at the rightmost corner of that gray toolbar. When you tap on it, the toolbar will show you a much fuller list of options that you probably use when working in Word at your desk, such as font type, font size and text alignment.

You can also access this menu from another location in Word. Simply tap on the A icon with a pencil over it, which you’ll find in the top center of your screen, as seen below. In the future, when you open a document that has already been saved, this icon will appear simply as a pencil.

From here, you’ll have instant access to practically every Word feature you rely on when working on your desktop or laptop computer. In the Home menu, as seen below, you’ll find options for fonts and, as you scroll down, an array of formatting features including bulleted lists, indenting and aligning text to the left or right.

If you tap on Home, you’ll see that you have an even fuller list of menus including Insert, Draw, Layout, Review and View.

Each menu contains several Word settings you might find handy. The Insert menu gives you access to elements like the header and footer, including page numbers for your document, and you can also insert objects like pictures and tables from there. The Layout menu lets you adjust the margins and orientation of your document. The Review menu, meanwhile, contains the option to turn on Track Changes and accept or reject suggested changes to a document.

Track Changes

To turn on Track Changes, tap on Review and then navigate down until you see the Track Changes option listed.

This is also where you can accept or reject individual changes that have been proposed to a document you’re working on — no need to wait until you get back to the office anymore. It’s all there right on your Galaxy smartphone.

Want to add a quick comment to a Word document instead? You can also do so right from the Review menu, where it’s listed toward the top. Alternatively, you can add a comment to a Microsoft Word document in your own handwriting, using your S Pen as naturally as you would with pen and paper. See the section below titled “Add comments in your own handwriting” for the steps to do that.

Mobile View in Microsoft Word

If you’re reviewing a document and straining to read the text or a particular passage of fine print as it’s displayed in the default Print Layout mode, then you may find it handy to use the Mobile View option that makes it easier to view Word documents on your phone. Simply tap the mobile device icon at the top center-right of your screen.

Then you will be treated to a fuller, more expansive view of your Word document.

As you can see, the Mobile View doesn’t enable you to edit or make changes to your Word document, but it does help you read it more comfortably on your phone. To switch back to the default view in which you can edit your Word document, simply tap on the mobile device icon once more.

Draw directly on a Word document using the S Pen

Not only can you access all the Microsoft Word features you need right on your S Pen-compatible Galaxy S21 Ultra or Galaxy Note20, you can also draw directly on your Word document. Simply go to the Draw menu and a full set of drawing tools will open up.

In this example, we’ve chosen a pen with green ink and a relatively thick line. S Pen in hand, we drew a lightbulb directly below a passage of text in a Word document.

As you explore the drawing tools in the Draw menu, you’ll see that you also have the option to draw a quick design using your finger or even a Bluetooth mouse if you’d like.

Add comments in your own handwriting

If you want to comment on a particular passage of text in a Word document but you’d rather not manually tap it out using the virtual keyboard, you can jot it down by hand with the S Pen. Use your S Pen to tap on and highlight the specific area of text you want to comment on.

A window will open up, inviting you to write a comment. You can of course do it using the virtual keyboard that’s already provided if you wish, or you can tap on the three dots at the right-hand corner of the toolbar to access the handwriting option.

Once you tap on Handwriting as seen above, a window will open up below. You can begin writing your comment by hand using your S Pen, and it will be converted into text in a miniature pane directly above. When you’re done, tap the paper airplane icon at the right and your comment will be added to the document.

When your comment has been added, it will appear in your Microsoft Word document.

You’ll also notice that the text you originally selected is highlighted with a color and there is a small comment icon, also in the same color, appearing just to the right-hand side. That is where you can access the comment again, should you wish to, as you are reviewing the Word document.

Get more done with Microsoft Office and your Galaxy smartphone

When you’re racing from one appointment to the next, time is of the essence. You need to be able to work quickly without hunting for the feature you need. The new Microsoft Office Mobile suite on your Samsung Galaxy smartphone puts that power at your fingertips, giving you the full range of Word, PowerPoint and Excel capabilities you enjoy on your PC. This way, you can get the most out of your Galaxy device and experience peak productivity wherever the day takes you. With your Samsung Galaxy device and Microsoft Office, there’s no limit to what you can accomplish.

Explore how the Galaxy S21 series can improve your productivity and collaboration in the office or at home. Then discover the full power of Microsoft Office and other mobile productivity apps by going mobile-only with DeX.