Microsoft Word is unquestionably one of the most valuable apps on my iPhone and iPad. I often use the app on my iPhone to review a document and make quick edits. On my iPad, I can get more substantive work done on a document, especially if I am using an external Bluetooth keyboard. When I am done working with a document, most of the time I want to email that document to someone — sometimes myself. You can do this with Word, but it takes a few steps. And due to a recent update, it now takes more steps than ever. Here is what you need to do to email a document using Microsoft Word on an iPhone or iPad.
1 + 2: Share and invite people.
The first step is to tap the share button at the top right of the iPhone or iPad screen — a box with an arrow coming out of it. In the past, there was an icon with an outline of a person and a + button, and that has been replaced by a share button.
What you see after you press the button has changed as well. In the past, the second step was to select an option to email the file as an attachment. Instead, you now need to select Invite People. That change seems strange to me because you are not really inviting anyone to do anything if you are just emailing a document.
3 + 4: Send a copy with another app.
After you tap the button to Invite People, the app next presumes that you want to share using a cloud service. However, at the very bottom, you will see an option to Send a Copy. Tap that.
The fourth step is to make selections on the Send a Copy screen, and this step is similar to before. Decide whether you want to send in Word format or PDF format, and then decide if you want to use Microsoft's own Outlook app for iPhone/iPad or Send with Another App. I don't use Outlook on my iPhone or iPad — and I'm sure that most of you don't do so either — so you will want to tap Send with Another App.
5 + 6: Select the Mail app and send your email.
The fifth step is to select what you want to use to send the Word file. If you are just sending to another one of your own devices, or the device of someone else in the same room, you can skip email completely and use AirDrop. But most of the time, this will be the step when you tap the Mail app. If your Mail app is not currently your first option, you may need to scroll to the right to find it. Once you do find it, you can drag it left to make it the first option in the future.
The sixth step is to create your email and then send it.
Depending upon your particular situation, there may be other, faster ways to email your file. For example, if your Microsoft Word document is stored on a cloud service that works with iOS, such as Dropbox or iCloud, or in certain other apps that work with the Files app, you can add an attachment from directly within an email. To do this on the iPhone, tap the flashing cursor in the body of an email message to bring up the editing menu. Then tap the right arrow until you see Add Attachment. To do this on the iPad, you don't have to tap the cursor at all; instead tap the paperclip icon just above the keyboard on the right side.
This brings you into a version of the Files app. If the Browse tab is selected at the bottom, you can select a service such as Dropbox and then tap your file. If the Recents tap is selected at the bottom, you can quickly see some of the files that you recently used and tap the one that you want.
Click here for more information from Apple on using the editing menu to attach files to an email.
I hope that in the future, Microsoft Word for iOS adds full support for the Files app. If this happens, you should be able to skip many of the six steps I mentioned above when a file is stored locally on your iPhone or iPad. For now, however, you just need to do a whole lot of tapping to get that Microsoft Word file from your device to an email attachment.
