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nickchallis92

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 4, 2012
906
469
London
I'm not going to lie, i'm ready to throw this machine out of the window. I've never known a machine have so few options - so much so that simple tasks are made complicated.

My dad has been given an ipad 3 through work and needs to edit work whilst he is on a series of flights tomorrow

So i've worked out that you can download word documents in the email app and then can 'share' them with another app - but can you download a bunch of files and have them saved locally so that in future any app can open them?

From what i've established, there are no free apps which have the ability to edit documents so i'm going to have to pay £7 for Pages (an app which seems to have very mixed reviews). It seems i'll be paying £7 for the privilege of having a basic text editor which can't display comments and converts files into a pages format not used by anyone on planet earth.

Can anyone give me assurances that pages will then have the option to email the amended files? Is there really no way of emailing them back in docx format?

Annoyed and missing the comfort of Android but any help would be greatly appreciated.:eek:
 

dictoresno

macrumors 601
Apr 30, 2012
4,482
619
NJ
personally, i use pages and numbers all the time to open, edit, save and resend documents all the time. infact, i keep my monthly expense tracking as a numbers spreadsheet.

when i was planning my wedding, my mother would email me tons of documents she created in word or excel, like invite lists and seating charts, which i opened in words/pages. i would then edit them and email them back to her. it was seamless.
 

nickchallis92

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 4, 2012
906
469
London
personally, i use pages and numbers all the time to open, edit, save and resend documents all the time. infact, i keep my monthly expense tracking as a numbers spreadsheet.

when i was planning my wedding, my mother would email me tons of documents she created in word or excel, like invite lists and seating charts, which i opened in words/pages. i would then edit them and email them back to her. it was seamless.

But does pages insist on using some mac format? My dad uses windows machines everywhere.
 

dictoresno

macrumors 601
Apr 30, 2012
4,482
619
NJ
But does pages insist on using some mac format? My dad uses windows machines everywhere.

i only use windows machines too. when you open or save a document, it converts the .doc word file to work in pages. when you go to export it, it will prompt you which format you want to re-convert it to, namely back to a .doc.

my family exclusively uses windows machines and have never had an issue with people sending me word or excel files, importing and then re-exporting. there may be some fonts and other things that cant convert properly, so pages/numbers compensates by finding the closest suitable font.

it became very handy to have and i found it well worth the $10 each cost. plus now i can save all my important documents and spreadsheets on my devices via icloud, and have them sync if i edit them.

from the wiki page.....

"Pages can import some AppleWorks word processing documents and Microsoft Word documents (including Word 2007's Office Open XML format[9]), and can export documents to rich text, PDF, EPUB and Microsoft Word DOC formats"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pages_(word_processor)
 

Shanghaichica

macrumors G5
Apr 8, 2013
14,617
13,107
UK
I use google drive. I can edit and create documents on my ipad and all changes are saved on my drive. If I want I have the option to email my documents in various formats. Google drive is free.
 

JTravers

macrumors 6502a
Jun 28, 2010
733
228
Upload the Word docs to Skydrive using the Skydrive app. Then use the Skydrive website (not the app) in Safari to edit it. It's not perfect, but it's the best tool I've found to edit Word docs on the iPad (and it's free). It'll even create a PDF of the Word doc, if you like. You can then email the Word doc from either the Skydrive website or the app.
 

saberahul

macrumors 68040
Nov 6, 2008
3,645
111
USA
Has anyone tried this app:

http://www.uxproductivity.com/

Seems like a good word processor, but only for .docx not normal .doc

It works with Dropbox or WebDAV, but I don't know if there's an offline function.

3 reviews including 1 from a beta tester (which seems nice). I'd hold off to see where the app goes. I like this and Pages. Pages is what I prefer a lot more though over everything else.
 

960design

macrumors 68040
Apr 17, 2012
3,691
1,548
Destin, FL
I'm not going to lie, i'm ready to throw this machine out of the window. I've never known a machine have so few options - so much so that simple tasks are made complicated.

My dad has been given an ipad 3 through work and needs to edit work whilst he is on a series of flights tomorrow

So i've worked out that you can download word documents in the email app and then can 'share' them with another app - but can you download a bunch of files and have them saved locally so that in future any app can open them?

From what i've established, there are no free apps which have the ability to edit documents so i'm going to have to pay £7 for Pages (an app which seems to have very mixed reviews). It seems i'll be paying £7 for the privilege of having a basic text editor which can't display comments and converts files into a pages format not used by anyone on planet earth.

Can anyone give me assurances that pages will then have the option to email the amended files? Is there really no way of emailing them back in docx format?

Annoyed and missing the comfort of Android but any help would be greatly appreciated.:eek:
I type documents using pages on my Mac. They are immediately available via cloud to my iPad. Changes made using my iPad are immediately available on my Mac. Easy peasy.

Pages on iPad will save/email a word document opened via email (and converted automatically to .pages format for use on iPad) back to email in .doc format with a couple of taps.

You could try a free app CloudOn. It will probably do all you need in a familiar environment.
 

cfs

macrumors 6502a
Feb 8, 2008
626
16
I'm not going to lie, i'm ready to throw this machine out of the window. I've never known a machine have so few options - so much so that simple tasks are made complicated.

My dad has been given an ipad 3 through work and needs to edit work whilst he is on a series of flights tomorrow

So i've worked out that you can download word documents in the email app and then can 'share' them with another app - but can you download a bunch of files and have them saved locally so that in future any app can open them?

From what i've established, there are no free apps which have the ability to edit documents so i'm going to have to pay £7 for Pages (an app which seems to have very mixed reviews). It seems i'll be paying £7 for the privilege of having a basic text editor which can't display comments and converts files into a pages format not used by anyone on planet earth.

Can anyone give me assurances that pages will then have the option to email the amended files? Is there really no way of emailing them back in docx format?

Annoyed and missing the comfort of Android but any help would be greatly appreciated.:eek:

This is actually a big deal for many people out there as there is no quick fix. Pages is great for text only. However, if one needs to add tables and charts and have it converted back to Word or visa/versa it can be a formatting nightmare.

As for Google Drive, this is my go to application for work as we all use it. However, the issue with Google Drive on the iPad is using tables. They do not always show up.

I know there is an application out there called Quick Office. You may want to look onto that one.

cfs
 

bobbysmith

macrumors regular
Nov 4, 2012
108
0
I'm not going to lie, i'm ready to throw this machine out of the window. I've never known a machine have so few options - so much so that simple tasks are made complicated.

My dad has been given an ipad 3 through work and needs to edit work whilst he is on a series of flights tomorrow

So i've worked out that you can download word documents in the email app and then can 'share' them with another app - but can you download a bunch of files and have them saved locally so that in future any app can open them?

From what i've established, there are no free apps which have the ability to edit documents so i'm going to have to pay £7 for Pages (an app which seems to have very mixed reviews). It seems i'll be paying £7 for the privilege of having a basic text editor which can't display comments and converts files into a pages format not used by anyone on planet earth.

Can anyone give me assurances that pages will then have the option to email the amended files? Is there really no way of emailing them back in docx format?

Annoyed and missing the comfort of Android but any help would be greatly appreciated.:eek:
It sounds like his employer is an idiot. He needs to get an ultra portable laptop.

To answer your question, no, there is no common file storage on the iPad. Each app has its own isolated folder and only has access to that. Apps can't access each other's folders. The only thing you can do is copy ("share") a file from one app to another. Each app has its own rudimentary file manager for the files in its private folder.

If you use Pages, you can copy files (one by one) from the e-mail client and edit them. However, editing Word documents in Pages completely destroys them if they contain anything but the most rudimentary formatting, and "advanced" Word functionality isn't supported at all.

Pages can export Word documents, but you simply cannot use it to send documents to Word users without yourself first verifying how they look in Word. Doing so is suicidal. Exporting PDF is ok. If you want to mail multiple documents to someone, you can't. Pages can only send e-mails with one attachment at a time.
 
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