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Integrate with Office from Android applications

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Office for Android provides an extensible solution that enables integration with third-party applications. You can integrate with Office from your Android application by passing users from your application to Office.

You can enable users who are running Office on an Android device to open and edit files stored in SharePoint or OneDrive from any application. To do this, you pass files to Office via protocol handlers, and you make sure that Office is invoked in a way that Office can understand.

When a user is done editing a file, they can choose the back key on the device to return to the original storage application.

Verify that Office has been installed

Your referring application will first need to verify that a particular Office application is installed. The following Office applications can be installed on Android devices for document viewing and editing:

  • Excel

  • PowerPoint

  • Word

Use Android PackageManager to determine whether a particular Office application is installed on the device. The following table lists the package names for the Office applications that you can use in this process.

Application Package name
Excel
com.microsoft.office.excel
PowerPoint
com.microsoft.office.powerpoint
Word
com.microsoft.office.word

Prompt the user to install Office

If a particular Office application is not installed, you can prompt the user to install the application. The following table lists the available install locations for Office applications.

Application Google Play Store
Excel
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.office.excel
PowerPoint
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.office.powerpoint
Word
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.office.word

Invoke Office

When the Office application is installed, your referring application can invoke Office by passing the following details:

  • Office protocol

  • Open mode

  • URL

Schema format:

<Office protocol><open mode>|u|<URL>

The following example shows a request to invoke a Word file for editing.

ms-word:ofe|u|https://contoso/Q4/budget.docx

Office protocols

The following table lists the protocols for each Office application.

Application Protocol
Excel
ms-excel:
PowerPoint
ms-powerpoint:
Word
ms-word:

Open mode

Office applications can open files directly into view (ofv) or edit (ofe) mode. Edit mode is the default.

Schema format:

<ofv or ofe>

URL

The URL includes three parts:

  • The declaration that the file will be opened for edit (ofe)

  • The URL descriptor (|u|)

  • The URL

The URL has to be encoded and must be a direct link to the file (not a redirect). If the URL is in a format that Office cannot handle, or the download simply fails, Office will not return the user to the invoking application.

Schema format:

|u|<document URL>

See also