15 Best Office Apps if You're Trying to Stay Productive Anywhere

Between Slack notifications, Zoom calls, and endless email chains, sometimes work can feel chaotic. But the right office apps can turn your laptop, tablet, or phone into a productivity superpower that simplifies your day instead of adding to the noise.

We all spend time on our phones. But the best office apps do more than just handle documents and spreadsheets. They keep your team connected, your files organized, and your mind fresh. 

Take Headway, for example — even 15 minutes of screen time can bring you insights that stick. Quick nonfiction summaries, personal progress tracking, and sleek design make it one of the most useful apps you’ll download this year.

The right apps can make the difference between surviving your workday and actually thriving in it. So, check the list of office apps that'll help you work smarter, not harder.

Quick answer: What are the five essential apps every office worker needs?

1. Microsoft 365 — The all-in-one powerhouse for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations that works seamlessly across all your devices.

2. Google Drive — Your collaboration hub for real-time teamwork, file sharing, and cloud storage with intelligent search capabilities.

3. Headway — The productivity booster that transforms your downtime into learning time with 15-minute book summaries for professional growth.

4. Dropbox — The file-sharing champion that eliminates email attachment headaches and keeps your team connected with any file size.

5. Xodo — Your document management specialist for signing contracts, filling forms, and annotating PDF files without printing a single page.

15 best office apps to help you work efficiently

Office workers use many programs to make their work easier. Here are 15 of the best office apps designed to help improve your work life.

All-in-one office suites

1. Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365, formerly known as Microsoft Office, is one of the most well-known office suite programs for Windows, likely due to its broad range of services. 

This app provides useful tools to help you keep track of your daily thoughts and work information. Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint can all be accessed in this convenient app.

Features you should know about: A great part of the Microsoft 365 app is its constant innovation. The app is routinely updated to add new features and ensure everything is running smoothly without bugs. 

Microsoft 365 lets you utilize various modern advancements, such as voice capabilities, to help you take notes without writing everything word for word.

2. AndrOpen Office

If you have used OpenOffice on other devices before, you may be excited to hear of its revamped mobile version. With over 5 million downloads to date, AndrOpen Office is known as the world's first porting of OpenOffice for Android. 

It offers a word processor and spreadsheet maker to help you perform your daily tasks. 

Features you should know about: Perhaps you would like to edit a PDF or import one of your PowerPoint files. Fortunately, AndrOpen Office has features that make it a complete office suite for all your document editing, viewing, importing, and exporting needs.

3. Office Suite

Office Suite is an office alternative that packs several tools into one punch despite its very simple name. This app boasts itself as a 4-in-1 office pack that lets you create written documents and templates, analyze data through spreadsheets, and present ideas using easy-to-navigate technology. 

Features you should know about: Office Suite is compatible with various file formats, such as Microsoft Office 365, OpenOffice, and Google Docs. This compatibility allows you to transfer files from other formats and edit them with Office Suite.  You can also use various features, like a PDF drawing stylus or different word fonts. Users also have access to 50 GB of cloud storage that can easily be synced across devices.

4. Polaris Office

Polaris Office offers an exciting way to perform all your office duties from a mobile device. With this mobile app, you can effectively manage your Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PDFs in one place. 

After creating and editing your files, Polaris Office lets you access them from any device at any time with a convenient offline editing feature.

Features you should know about: This office suite is compatible with MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Adobe PDF. You can also upload or save multiple file formats, such as DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, PPT, TXT, HWP, PDF, and more. 

If you need something from a past document, Polaris Office provides a search tool that lets you quickly find your document by inputting the proper keywords.

5. WPS Office Free

WPS Office offers an all-in-one free office suite to help you fulfill your professional needs. You can access various WPS Office functions like the PDF converter, PowerPoint slides, and Cloud Storage. 

You might enjoy using WPS Office to create important work documents and presentations to share among the team.

Features you should know about: This app also offers some unique features, including various small tools designed to simplify every part of the work process on your Mac. 

For example, WPS Office allows you to fill in forms, scan images, and convert images to an Excel sheet. You can also easily share oversized files with a link to maintain communication and ease of workflow between co-workers.

6. Only Office

All business owners and office employees should use some method to maintain organization throughout their daily tasks. Luckily, Only Office is an open office suite app that provides a secure place to store, create, and edit your business documents. 

This app is specially made for private offices and offers the fundamentals of any office suite program: a document editor, spreadsheet editor, presentation editor, and PDF reader and converter.

Features you should know about: Only Office gives you plenty of tools to collaborate with fellow team members on shared projects. When a team member works on a shared document, you can view their changes and make necessary annotations. 

You can integrate with other apps to bring data from your calendar, collaboration platform, mail, CRM, and more. Only Office also has a convenient online editor's tool, which helps motivate you to complete daily tasks around the office.

7. Zoho Workplace

As an office employee, you're likely looking for tools to help you further your career. For instance, you may be interested in starting your own small business, and Zoho Workplace might be the perfect app for that. 

Besides its classic office suite features, like a word processor and spreadsheets, Zoho Workplace has a trusty site creation tool with features to make your budding business stand out.

Features you should know about: You can also use Zoho's site creation tools to build a professional portfolio that will help you look good to prospective employers. Otherwise, you could always use Zoho's other features, such as its modern take on the word processor with a formatting sidebar. 

Zoho Marketplace also presents an alluring spreadsheet and presentation slides to help you create professional documents.

8. LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a free and open-source office suite that serves as a comprehensive alternative to paid office programs. Backed by The Document Foundation, this non-profit project includes Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing).

Features you should know about: What makes LibreOffice special is its complete compatibility with Microsoft Office formats like .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, and .pptx files. You can open, edit, and save files in these formats without losing formatting or functionality. 

On mobile devices, LibreOffice is available through the Collabora Office app, which brings the full power of LibreOffice to your smartphone or tablet. The version for IOs and Android allows you to create new documents, edit existing files, and work offline when needed. 

You can bold, italicize, underline text, adjust fonts and sizes, insert images and tables, and add headers, footers, and page breaks. Plus, you can save files to various cloud storage services for easy access across all your devices.

Team collaboration and productivity apps

9. Headway

As a business professional, you likely don't have much time to devote to building skills and implementing self-care practices. Luckily, Headway is a bite-sized learning app committed to helping you learn effective personal development tools while on the go. 

You can use this app to listen to book summaries during commutes, break times, or even at home when you're not working.

Features you should know about:  The Headway app can boost your productivity in the workplace. For one, it offers a broad range of book summaries, each with its own ideas and strategies for career development. After reading, you can participate in fun challenges and gain achievements to help keep you motivated to reach an end goal.

At Headway, we offer book summaries that fit your every need. Whether you want to build your current professional skills or climb the corporate ladder, you can find a book that will help guide you along the way. Download the Headway app and check out our fantastic summary selection you can read or listen to on the go.

10. Google Drive

Google Drive has all the essentials to help you manage your personal and professional office productivity. Some tools that Google Drive provides include a word processor, calendar, finance tracker, and Meet space. That means you can perform all or most of your daily office tasks with this one program.

Many people use Google Drive for its ease of access and enhanced technology. For instance, even the free version of Google Drive uses an intelligent search tool that lets you search for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations containing certain keywords. 

Features you should know about: Because it's a cloud service, you can collaborate with others on projects in real time through shared links, which helps maximize efficiency and support team-building.

11. Quip

Quip is a simple yet detailed location designed to help you easily share office files, to-do lists, and projects with your team members. One of Quip's main features is its "Living Documents," in which you can regularly work on and maintain a document with several team members simultaneously. 

You can even chat together while working on a project simultaneously to communicate changes easily.

Features you should know about: With Quip, you can make various work projects an ongoing opportunity for team-building. Download Quip to your Apple or Android device, and you and your team can effectively manage chats, task lists, documents, and spreadsheets in one app. Not only does Quip help you improve co-worker relationships, but it also allows you to find methods to simplify your work process.

12. Dropbox

Dropbox makes file sharing and collaboration incredibly straightforward, whether you're working with your team or sending files to clients. You can share files of any size with anyone, even if they don't have a Dropbox account, simply by creating a shareable link. This flexibility eliminates the frustration of email attachment size limits.

What sets Dropbox apart is its real-time collaboration features. Multiple team members can work on documents simultaneously, and you'll receive notifications when someone makes changes to shared files. 

You can also add passwords and expiration dates to shared links for extra security, making it perfect for sensitive business documents.

Features you should know about: The mobile app lets you access files anywhere, automatically backs up your phone's photos, and even scans documents directly into your Dropbox. With features like version history and the ability to work offline, Dropbox keeps your team connected and productive no matter where you're working from.

13. OneDrive

Microsoft OneDrive seamlessly integrates with the entire Microsoft 365 ecosystem, making it a natural choice for teams already using Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Teams. You get 5 GB of free storage to start, with the ability to access your files from any device through the web, desktop, or mobile apps.

OneDrive excels at real-time collaboration — multiple people can work on the same document simultaneously, with changes saving automatically and syncing across all devices. 

Features you should know about: The mobile app includes handy features like document scanning, automatic photo backup, and the ability to work offline. You can easily share files with customizable permissions, set password protection for shared links, and track who has accessed your shared documents. 

The Personal Vault feature adds an extra layer of security for sensitive files, requiring additional authentication to access your most important documents. 

For businesses, OneDrive also integrates with Microsoft Teams and SharePoint for enterprise-level collaboration.

Specialized tools

14. Squid

Smartphone users can write notes on their devices instead of a notebook with an active pen or passive stylus. Using the Squid is a more eco-friendly alternative to paper notes. 

It also eliminates the need to carry around heavy books by letting you write just as you would on paper while organizing all your notes into a neat, digital format. If you wish, you can even use your finger to draw and write out your notes!

Features you should know about: This office software also features a markup tool that allows you to easily fill out digital forms, grade papers, or add notes to text documents. You can add text boxes, import images, and copy and paste shapes onto your PDF to customize it to your liking.

15. Xodo 

If you need an app designed specifically for managing PDFs, Xodo PDF Reader and Editor may be the perfect choice. This app is easy to use and features several tools that enable you to highlight, underline, or add comments to text in your PDF. 

You might start with a blank PDF and fill it with your text, images, handwritten notes, or drawings. The possibilities of what you can create with this app are nearly endless.

Features you should know about: Since many business forms, documents, and information sheets require a signature, signing your name onto a large stack of forms can be incredibly exhausting. As such, Xodo makes it possible to digitally sign PDFs and email them directly to co-workers without the hassle of printing them out first. 

Both iPhone and Android apps allow you to save your signature as a stamp that you can place onto any future document to save time. Paste and adjust the saved signature onto your document to sign several pages in record time.

Become a top performer with Headway

Office apps can help you develop essential skills and boost confidence in the workplace with helpful software. For instance, using a book summary app can give you the necessary information to help maximize your career. 

The Headway app is a great example of an app you should use in the workplace to help boost learning and improve efficiency. It provides users with book summaries from the world's bestselling non-fiction books by career professionals. With fun achievements and goal-setting tools to keep you motivated in the long term, this app is a must-have for all smartphone users. 

Download the Headway app to gain unlimited access to a comprehensive library of over 2,000+ book summaries on the best career-building books.