Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, has been trying to make its Quest VR headsets helpful for more than just virtual reality gaming. Productivity and social applications are slowly making their way to Quest headsets, and now three Microsoft applications have joined the party.
Microsoft has now released Word, PowerPoint, and Excel applications for Quest VR headsets, all available for free from the Meta Quest Store. They are compatible with all Quest headsets—yes, even the original model thatMeta doesn’t even fully support anymore. you may also use hand tracking (if supported by your headset) instead of pointing with the controllers.
The new applications are basically just the web versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint running in a floating window. You can use them in a completely isolated VR environment, or the window can be surrounded by the passthrough video feed from your headset. There is a virtaul keyboard available, but you’ll probably want to connect a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to your headset for the best possible experience.
Unfortunately, since the apps are just the web apps, they aren’t optimized for impercise VR had controls. I haven’t tried the apps on my own Quest 2, but other reports indicate that some buttons are too small to reliably click, and tasks like selecting cells in Excel are difficult without a mouse. The limitations of the cloud-based Office apps are also still present, like the requirement for an active internet connection.
Meta has been trying to build up an ecosystem of productivity and work tools around its VR headsets. TheQuest Prowas built specifically for working in VR, alongside the Meta Workrooms platform for in-VR meetings, and theQuest 3released earlier this year has a much-improved passthrough (mixed reality) mode. Apple will start selling theVision Pronext year, which is intended almost exclusively for productivity work and not gaming. It will probably be much better at working than any Quest headsets, but it will also be significantly more expensive.
You can downloadMicrosoft Word,Microsoft PowerPoint, andMicrosoft Excelfor free on the Meta Quest.
