Office Online Apps in Chrome

Recently, Microsoft’s Online applications have come to the rescue.  I’ve learned that I can edit Word documents on my Linux OS without needing Wine or a Windows VM.  I don’t have the full feature set, but it’s close enough for basic editing.  One big issue that I have is that I can’t create Styles.  I’m not sure that I can adjust tab stops either.

So, when I ran across the Chrome store apps for Office Online, I was excited.  Maybe Microsoft is showing Linux, or at least Web-based users a little more attention?

Here are the links to the Apps in the Chrome Web Store:

Unfortunately, these apps didn’t help me much.  Anytime I click on one of the apps, it requests my email address.  Then, it takes me to an Outlook page.  I’m not sure if it is because I am using my company account which is has a Sharepoint corporate account associated.

I was hoping that these apps might help me with some major bugs that I have been experiencing.  First, in Word documents, Chrome deletes my selection when I press Ctrl + C.  If I try to right click and ask it to copy, I just get a message saying the browser doesn’t have access to the clipboard.  Second, in Excel, Chrome seems to get in this mode where it deletes the contents of cells when I navigate to them with the arrows on the keyboard.

Both of those are serious issues, so I have taken to using Firefox for the time being.  At least this shows that Chrome is on the radar for supporting the online applications.

Resources

OMG Chrome: Microsoft Brings Office Online Apps to Chrome Web Store

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