Using Office on a touch screen will get a whole lot easier soon. Microsoft has unveiled a new version of Office that gives each of its apps a mode built around use on a touchscreen — a feature that their predecessors quite noticeably lacked. The new version, which Microsoft calls “a preview of a work in progress,” looks quite a bit like the Office that was unveiled for the iPad just last week: apps have a simple bar on top, leaving most of the screen below for viewing documents. Most importantly, the toolbars are sparsely populated and feature buttons that should be large enough and spaced far enough apart that they’ll be easy to select with your fingers. That said, the version Microsoft is showing on stage looks more full-featured than the stripped-back iPad app. Microsoft’s famous “Ribbon” UI is still around, but it’s been nipped and tucked to make sense in a touch environment.