If you sometimes need to carry on working outside the office, these office apps make it easy.
Some of the most useful android apps enable users to be just as productive outside of the office as inside. For example, there are apps available for email, reminders, document editing, spreadsheets, presentations, note-taking, chat, video calling, and document scanning. Another advantage of Android office apps is the support for cloud integration that enables users to access documents from the cloud, edit them as required, and easily save them again. The best of these types of apps make it easy to work anywhere, and many of them are also excellent for personal use.
Our picks of the best free Android office apps, taking into account usability, integration, features and services, performance, and more. Do note that these are all free to download from the Google Play Store although some have in-app purchases (IAPs) or upgrades to a premium version for full features and functionality.
OFFICESUITE
Price: Free with ads/ Offers IAP
OfficeSuite from MobiSystems is an excellent all-around office app with integrated cloud storage called MobiDrive with free 5GB storage space. You can still connect to other cloud storage apps. The app is compatible with MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as PDF processes, to make it easy to create, view or edit documents on the go. Compatible Microsoft formats include DOC, DOCX, DOCM, XLS, XLSX, XLSM, PPT, PPTX, PPS, PPSC, PPTM, and PPSM. The app features an abundance of tools including the integrated File Commander, chat client, and more.
We really like the integrated spell checker, text-to-speech support, and a whole lot more. In fact, there are so many features we can’t list them all! In-app purchases are necessary for some features such as support for more common formats, Microsoft Compatibility font pack, cross-platform license for Android, iOS, and Windows, and some PDF operations. You can also opt to upgrade to the paid Pro version of the app from $19.99-$29.99.
POLARIS OFFICE
Price: Free with ads/ Offers IAP *Editors’ Choice*
Polaris is compatible with MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Spreadsheet, Slide, Google Docs, and Adobe PDF, and supports 18 languages including English, Arabic, Japanese, French, and Russian. It supports Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Polaris Drive cloud storage. Neat features include the ability to draw and edit by writing on the screen, and inserting video clips or taking a picture from cameras to documents with your smartphone.
Plenty of its usage is free, and you can remove ads with an in-app purchase of $2.99. Alternatively, you can upgrade to premium functions with either the Smart Plan or Pro Plan at $3.99 or $5.99 monthly respectively.
GMAIL
Price: Free with ads
Google’s own email app is widely used across the globe, and many people will already have this app installed on their mobile device. However, if you haven’t taken the plunge, it’s well worth checking out Gmail, as it’s pretty challenging to beat and is entirely free to use. The app offers instant access to emails with push notifications when they arrive, easy search facility, and the ability for online and offline use. You can categorize the messages in your inbox, use Gmail and non-Gmail addresses, and get a whopping 15GB of free storage.
GOOGLE DRIVE
Price: Free/ Offers IAP *Editor’s Choice*
Another of Google’s ecosystems, Google Drive is excellent as a hub for safely storing and accessing your files from the cloud, as well as sharing files and folders with colleagues. It’s incredibly user-friendly and enables offline file viewing, Google Photos access for your photos and videos, and fast access to recent files. You can also set different access levels for collaborators to view, edit, or comment. Don’t worry too much about the in-app purchases with this one, as they are only necessary if you want to expand your Google Drive space.
QUIP
Price: Free
Quip is entirely free to use with no in-app purchases or adverts, a nice addition to this type of app. This smart little app makes it straightforward to collaborate with work colleagues by combining docs, spreadsheets, task lists, and chat, all in one hub. Notes taken in the office can be easily edited on your phone, and the real-time chat and messaging feature are handy if a discussion is needed about what needs to be done that also let you attach files for fast sharing. You can also manage and organize task lists, useful for both work and family, with real-time checklists, so you know instantly when something has been completed.
Documents can be imported from Box, Google Docs, Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, and more, and exported to Microsoft Word and PDF, while spreadsheets can be exported to Microsoft Excel. For a free app, it has a lot to offer, with support across phones, tablets, and desktops.
GOOGLE DUO
Price: Free *Editor’s Choice*
For serious business meetings and works, it’s worth checking out our list of the best video calling apps. However, Google’s Duo app works really well and has great quality. It’s simple to use with a beautifully clear interface and offers single tap video calling on the go or on Wi-Fi. It’s also cross-platform across Android and iOS devices, and further features include voice calls when you don’t want to be seen on video. The latest updates also bring many fun features such as applying various in-call effects, doodling, live video previews, video messaging, and more.
MICROSOFT TO-DO
Price: Free
Microsoft To-Do is a task management tool that syncs across multiple devices. It will help you to stay organized with lists, notes, smart suggestions, and more, and one of the best features is reminders and due dates so you should never forget those important things you need to get done. It’s a solid option for work use and also home, and personal use. It also includes list sharing, a dark mode for easy reading, subtasks, note-taking, and color-coding.
WPS OFFICE
Price: Free with ads/ Offers IAP
This all-in-one office suite has been downloaded more than 1.3 billion times, and its clean interface adds to the appeal. It covers a whole load of functions include Word, PDF, Memo, Docs Scanner, Spreadsheet, and Presentation, so it’s easy to access work wherever you are and at any time of day. Its features are too numerous to mention but include easy sharing and transfer of documents via email, instant messaging, WiFi, NFC, DLNA, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, and Telegram.
All Office file formats are supported as well as 51 languages, and in-app purchases can be used for additional features. These include a fonts package, exclusive presentation templates and more.
CLEAR SCAN
Price: Free with ads/ Offers IAP
Clear Scan turns a smartphone into a mini-document scanner for all types of documents including bills, receipts, photos, notes, and invoices. The scanned documents can be converted to JPEG or PDF formats, with sharing over mail, Google Drive, Evernote, Dropbox, OneDrive, SkyDrive, and more.
The app features automatic detection of the corner of the file, or you can choose to crop it to just the section you want to scan. Further functions include an auto-correction to improve your results, filter options, editing after save, folders and subfolders, and printing via Cloud Print. An in-app purchase is available to remove the ads if required. Overall, it’s one of the better PDF scanner apps for android.
SMARTOFFICE
Price: Free
For a free app with no in-app purchases, SmartOffice is pretty impressive. It’s a complete solution for mobile productivity needs covering documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and more. There’s also cloud support to Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive, as well as support for wireless printing. Additionally, the app has rich formatting styles, password protection support for Office files, and supports more than 35 languages. We like the intuitive interface of this one so urge you to take a look.
ANDROPEN
Price: Free / Offers IAP
AndrOpen Office is fast, simple, and intuitive. It has a whole office suite for working with text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. It also has a drawing pad for slides and a formula table for excel files. It has some annoying ads randomly popping out whenever you navigate the app. Still, you can purchase a permanent license that will remove ads, will let you access cloud storage and other valuable functions for the price of $7.99. The free version works effectively and can still fulfill one’s task but with limited export to the device’s storage. If you can bear the somehow annoying ads, you may find AndrOpen Office easy to use.
DOCS TO GO
Price: Free / Offers IAP
This long-established office app still does its purpose and keeps up with the latest optimization and practice. It has the essential office suite such as word, spreadsheet, presentation, and PDF. You may think that the user experience will be intrusive, especially with its a bit of outdated UI and the controls are very limited. Nevertheless, I found it very responsive, plausible, easy to use, and lightweight. The paid version opens new features like password-locked files, cloud storage, and desktop sync for $16.99 OTP.
COLLABORA
Price: Free
Collabora Office uses the same engine as LibreOffice for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The mobile version closely resembles the look on the desktop that helps to quickly figure out how to run it cross-platform. This popular open-source office suite can view and edit word, spreadsheets, and presentations. It can also read files from Microsoft office 2007-2019 as well as 97 -2003 versions. The UI is straightforward, with no annoying adverts. Though they are pretty limited, I don’t see any app matching the simplicity that Collabora Office can provide.
We deliberately didn’t list the standard office apps such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, or Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. The reason behind this is that most readers will already be using some of these, although if you want to check them out, you can find them all listed separately on the Google Play Store.
These are the best free Android office apps that will cover most bases regarding office and business needs and hope you find at least some of these apps to be useful and productive. If you try one or more of the above apps, why not send us a comment to tell us which you prefer and why?
Have you tried? SSuite Office Online… works great… 😀
They have no login or any account registration, completely open and free to use, which is much better than most of the other online office suite…
But that is just my opinion.