Kurt Shintaku's Blog

[I’m writing this because Office Remote mysteriously & silently disappeared from the Google Play Store back in 2018.  I’m currently pinging Darren Edge internally who’s the Director responsible for Office Remote in the early part of the decade to find out what happened. 

I suspect that the effort to keep it maintained per Microsoft engineering & development guidelines didn’t warrant keeping it listed… so yes, that’s a bummer.  But 1.2.0.0 of the Android “Office Remote” client remains available as a downloadable .APK from 3rd parties but it does mean you have to sideload it so caveat installer.]

Office Remote turns your phone into a smart remote that interacts with Microsoft Office on your PC. The app lets you control Word, Excel, and PowerPoint from across the room, so you can walk around freely during presentations. It also shows you your speaker notes and the presentation timer to help you present more effectively.

New PowerPoint Features in v1.1.3.0:

We added a large thumbnail of the slide that is currently presented, as well as a smaller preview of your next slide. We managed to do this without impacting your notes.

You now get an instant laser pointer by simply touching this new thumbnail with your finger.

Play and pause your embedded videos from Office Remote.

With Office Remote, 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.

Office Remote has the following features:

PowerPoint:

• Jump to the next, previous, and last slide
• View slide thumbnails and jump to a slide
• View speaker notes on phone
• View presentation timer and slide numbers
• Laser pointer using touch on your phone

Excel:

• Change worksheets by swiping
• Use Slicers, PivotTable, and Filters
• Jump to any named object in your workbook
• Move up or down the worksheet
• Change the zoom level

Word:

• Jump to headings
• Jump to comments
• Screen up/down
• Line up/down
• Change the zoom level

App requirements:

• Microsoft Office 2013. This app does not work with Office 2013 RT or earlier versions of Office.
• Bluetooth on your PC – The desktop add-in for Office Remote must be installed on your PC 

Installation:
There are two components:

• Microsoft Office Remote PC Setup for Windows/PC Desktop client
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41149
• Microsoft Office Remote Mobile Client for Android
  In order to download the Android client you need to go to a 3rd party download site since the Google Play Store no longer carries it.  There are many “mirrors” of the original .APK downloadable install package but to take advantage of it, you need to enable APK installation/sideloading on your Android phone)

  Here’s one example:
  https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/microsoft-corporation/office-remote/office-remote-1-2-0-0-release/microsoft-office-remote-1-2-0-0-android-apk-download/download/

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A word on downloading .APK files from external sources
Downloading APKs outside of a trusted store like this is inherently risky.  There are ways that you can scan .APKs for threats and viruses, but you can never really be sure. 

If you want to pursue downloading the APK from a 3rd party source, read the following to understand how to scan APKs for threats:
https://www.maketecheasier.com/scan-apk-files-for-virus/

I’ve personally scanned the APKMirror.com file using Metadefender & VirusTotal but you should probably do the same for any APK you plan to sideload.