Microsoft begins beta testing iPadOS multi-window support for Word and PowerPoint

6 years ago Lucas Doyle

One of the most useful changes in iPadOS 13 last year was the ability to open multiple windows of the same application. Slowly but surely, more developers have added support for this feature to their applications, and now Microsoft is joining in as well.

Microsoft is now beta testing support for iPadOS multi-window in Word and PowerPoint for iPad. This allows you to open and work on two documents or presentations side-by-side. In a blog post, Microsoft highlights three different ways to access this feature:

Touch, hold, and drag a file from the Recent, Shared, and Open file list in the app to the iPad screen edge to open it side-by-side.
In Word or PowerPoint, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and open the dock. Then touch and hold the same app’s icon and drag it off the dock to the left or right edge of the screen. Then tap the document to open it.
In Word or PowerPoint, access the Recent, Shared, and Open views in the app start screen, tap the “…” menu for a file in the list, then tap Open in New Window.

As of right now, Microsoft has not revealed when it plans to make iPad multi-window support available to all users, but hopefully, it is sooner rather than later. For the time being, you can join the Microsoft Word public beta through this TestFlight link and the Microsoft PowerPoint beta through this link.

And in case you forgot, Apple’s Craig Federighi actually demonstrated Microsoft Word multi-window support at WWDC 2019. It’s pretty incredible that it has almost a full year for the feature to become available.

The video below offers a closer look at the new Microsoft Office support for multi-window on iPad. What do you think of Microsoft’s implementation? Let us know down in the comments!