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Best office type app for iPad 2

M

MrMister111

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jan 28, 2009
3,900
382
UK
Hopefully getting my iPad 2 soon. What is the best office type of app? I use Mac and Windows computers.

I notice there is Docs to Go, Quickoffice etc. I wont use it much, but I want to encourage my family to use it, and want a office type suite

cheers
 
Personally, my favourite is Pages, Numbers and Keynote (combined with a dropdav account to enable saving to and loading from DropBox) but the compatibility with MS Office files isn't the best. I also have Docs to Go which is a bit ugly but has better compatibility with office files.
 
Personally, I'd get Pages Keynote Numbers. After getting my iPad, I was told that QuickOffice was better, but I've found that though cloud interaction on iWork is a bit messy, it's still fairly intuitive, and the formatting options are orders of magnitude above QuickOffice. Since they are all similar, why not get Pages and see how you like it before jumping at Keynote and Numbers?
 
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Office2 HD is another good option if you're able to work with Google Docs as a sort of Office intermediary. It supports Dropbox as well.
 
I think the discussion shows that the answer to your question will depend on your use. I have Iwork and QO. If you use Microsoft Office at home/work and need to easily access, do light editing of, and save back many different documents (word, excel, PPT) on the go, I'd bet QO is best for you because of its superior file folder, integration with services like dropbox and google docs, ability to handle these tasks without converting the doc to another program and thus the need to convert back. If you want to create, format, and do more heavy editing of documents, or use Iwork at home, the IWork suite is probably better. For me, I use QO because it is an all in one feature and for its dropbox integration. But if I was a writer or needed to create/fromat polished docs, I bet I'd use pages a lot more.
 
I just notice Quick Office Mobile Connect is on special at moment for GBP £8.99, is this the best for what I will use, ie not much?

The other Apple apps are £8.99 each so a lot more?

cheers
 
Phil A. said:
Personally, my favourite is Pages, Numbers and Keynote (combined with a dropdav account to enable saving to and loading from DropBox) but the compatibility with MS Office files isn't the best. I also have Docs to Go which is a bit ugly but has better compatibility with office files.
Click to expand...

I'd second this. iWork as a preference for UI and functionality, D2Go for fidelity of original office files.
 
I don't have to worry much about getting docs off my iPad, I usually just export them as pdf's if I want to view elsewhere. Even though the iWork suite for iPad is expensive, I couldn't be happier with it. I haven't use anything else, but I'm very happy with Pages, Keynote, and Numbers.
 
You have to be aware of how the various mobile apps can alter the MS Office files that you are editing. Since the mobile apps aren't compatible with every feature that Word or Excel (especially Excel) have, formatting or information can be lost when saved.
 
Interesting. So what's the best app for MS Word files? I work almost exclusively in Word for word processing and would like to have an iPad 2 app that is as fully featured as possible and as close to MS Word compatibility as possible.
 
QuickOffice offers far better Dropbox integration and it's far better for organizing large numbers of files. Pages on the iPad won't allow anything other than a cover-flow type display of your files, with no subfolders, and to connect with Dropbox you need DropDAV. OTOH, Pages reproduces a lot of formatting better than QuickOffice and it has styles--though you can't create styles on the iPad. (If you don't have Pages for Mac, download the free 30-day trial, set up your basic doc, and send it to the iPad for cloning each time you want to create a new document.) I use both.
 
So....

So i should get pages if i want fancy doc edit. And QO if I need it on the go, right? Did anyone ever try getting both? Like, fancy edit on pages, transfer it to office, and then use QO to present it or something...
 
Sorry to hijack the thread but I would assume y'all know the answer to this, without needing to create a new thread.

I have Pages on my MacBook Pro and my iPad, I've set up the Cloud on both my iPad and the MBP.

How do I access a Pages file I created on my iPad on my MacBook Pro and vice versa?
 
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