I’ve been using Office 2013, officially released yesterday, for a few months now since it was RTM’d way back last October. One of the most interesting feature with this new release is the support for Windows RT, which also means the support for touch screens, just as Microsoft has been emphasizing the importance of having Office running on touch-enabled devices. Despite the fact that most people will still be using this new Office mainly on their desktop, it’s quite clear that the future of Office is relying on the touch screen. To open the door to the future, here is how you can enable touch optimized Office 2013 on any devices, including those that runs on Windows RT.
Here is How You can Enable Touch Mode in Office 2013
Go launch any application in Office 2013 suite. In my case, I have PowerPoint open. Go to the very right click the down arrow on the first row close to very left of the menu, called Quick Launch Bar. (see screenshot below)
From the drop down menu you will find “Touch/Mouse Mode”
Go ahead enable this option.
Once you have done that, there will be another menu appear on the left of the drop down menu. Click the newly appeared menu, you will see the option to “Optimize spacing between commands”.
You can select between “Mouse” and “Touch” mode. The mouse mode, is obviously the sander ribbon mode that we all love since Office 2007. The touch mode is yet, also ribbon mode, but with wider spaces in between icons and menus, made suitable for our fingers.
The above is a screenshot with Office 2013 ribbon in Touch mode.
Compare to the traditional mouse mode. There are quite difference between two of them. Give it a try if you have a touch enabled Windows 8 machine.