Office Remote turns Windows Phone into a presentation controller

Microsoft Research's latest app makes it easier than ever to give a presentation without having to hunch over your laptop. Like the idea of wandering the stage gesticulating wildly as you skip between PowerPoint slides? Fancy being able to scroll through Word and Excel documents without the need to find your mouse? This is what Office Remote has been designed for. This is a simple app for Windows Phone, but one that will be welcomed with open arms by anyone who has to give presentations as part of their job.

The app is described by Microsoft as transforming a cell phone into a "magic wand" and it untethers presenters so they are free to walk the stage and interact with their audience. While the most obvious app to use Office Remote with may be PowerPoint, it can be used with Word and Excel too -- the 2013 and 365 versions of the office suite are supported (although not the RT version of Office).

If you've created a presentation that includes speaker notes, these notes can be displayed on the screen of your Windows Phone, but there are also those all-important controls for advancing to the next slide. A virtual laser point is available for pointing out interesting elements of a slide. In a post on the Windows Phone blog, Office program manager Bert Van Hoof said:

You can start your PowerPoint presentation, advance the slides, see your speaker notes, and control an on-screen laser pointer with a touch of your finger -- all from your phone. You can also navigate between Excel worksheets and graphs, and control data slicers from the palm of your hand. And you can scroll through a Word document or quickly jump to specific sections or comments.

Grab yourself a copy of the app from the Windows Phone app store. You'll also need a copy of the desktop add-in.

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