Unlike OneDrive and Dropbox which you
add as a Place to access and save files in PowerPoint
for iPad, Apple’s iCloud does not work the same way. To access and save files on your iCloud Drive, you will have to work a little
differently as explained within this tutorial.
Note: You cannot save a new file or resave a file saved on OneDrive or Dropbox into iCloud. You can only open and save
files that are already on your iCloud. Hopefully this will change in the future.
Follow these steps to open files on iCloud in PowerPoint for iPad:
- You should be in the opening screen of PowerPoint for iPad, as shown in Figure 1, below.
Figure 1: PowerPoint’s opening screen
If you have already opened another file, you will have to close it by tapping the Back button on the Ribbon, as shown
highlighted in green in
Figure 2, below.
Figure 2: Back button
- Now tap the Open tab on the left pane. In the resultant window, tap the More option highlighted
in red within Figure 3, below.
Figure 3: Tap the More option
- This will open your iCloud Drive. Select a PowerPoint file – you’ll notice that the PowerPoint file shown in
Figure 4, below has no preview or icon. If your iCloud Drive has many files, you can also use the Search option
available. To open any file, tap on it.
Figure 4: Tap on a file to open it
- PowerPoint will now load the file from your iCloud Drive (see Figure 5).
Figure 5: Opening a file from the iCloud Drive
- Your files will now be open in PowerPoint, ready to edit and view, as shown in Figure 6, below. Note that you can make
changes to this file and save it back to your iCloud Drive. However you cannot save a new file created in PowerPoint to iCloud – your file
must already exist in the iCloud Drive for PowerPoint to open, view and save it.
Figure 6: File opened from iCloud
