Business-class document editing on iPad?

[ReallyBigFeet]

We had a discussion thread on here last week talking about the inherent limitations of shared document management on an iPad and ways to get around these limitations (GoodReader, iWork.com, etc.)

Now I'm trying to find a definitive list of what features are and are not supported in the iWork iPad suite (Pages, Keynote, Numbers). Clearly, I'm not expecting the iPad versions to have even half of the features of their OSX counterparts. This isn't a netbook and wasn't designed to be a "junior Mac."
But I would like to know what a 'minimum feature spec' looks like for documents that will seamlessly move between an iPad and their full-blown counterparts.

Does anyone have a link or detailed information to share on what features are/are not supported on the iPad iWork apps? For example, I've seen claims already that if your Pages documents contain headers/footers they will be lost when you transfer them to Pages on the iPad. That kind of detailed information would be greatly appreciated if its out there.

Yes, I used search already....nothing definitive.

Oh and I'm limiting this to iWork apps OSX versus iWork apps iPad. iWork itself already has a reduced feature set versus MS Office. This keeps it apples to apples if you'll pardon the pun.

 

[r0k]

We had a discussion thread on here last week talking about the inherent limitations of shared document management on an iPad and ways to get around these limitations (GoodReader, iWork.com, etc.)

Now I'm trying to find a definitive list of what features are and are not supported in the iWork iPad suite (Pages, Keynote, Numbers). Clearly, I'm not expecting the iPad versions to have even half of the features of their OSX counterparts. This isn't a netbook and wasn't designed to be a "junior Mac."
But I would like to know what a 'minimum feature spec' looks like for documents that will seamlessly move between an iPad and their full-blown counterparts.

Does anyone have a link or detailed information to share on what features are/are not supported on the iPad iWork apps? For example, I've seen claims already that if your Pages documents contain headers/footers they will be lost when you transfer them to Pages on the iPad. That kind of detailed information would be greatly appreciated if its out there.

Yes, I used search already....nothing definitive.

Oh and I'm limiting this to iWork apps OSX versus iWork apps iPad. iWork itself already has a reduced feature set versus MS Office. This keeps it apples to apples if you'll pardon the pun.

The reason there's nothing definitive is Apple hasn't provided it. What you get on the web is anecdotal evidence and users ranting about this or that doesn't work. I don't know if this thread can rise above the level of what's currently known on this topic, but I'm looking for the same sort of thing. A no nonsense checklist of what is missing from the iPad. I published an iPad review of my own, but I haven't had time to try "everything" either. Part of me says we should wait to see what OS 4 brings and part of me wants this list posted now so Apple can add some functionality to OS 4 before it arrives this fall.

I'll start with a few things I notice. On my Mac, I can receive an email attachment, detach and save it. Open it in Pages and save it with a new name, then email it back out again using my gmail account. Not so on iPad. Any email on my iPad seems to be forced to go through my mobile me account, which I use merely as an aggregator for other email accounts and I never want email going there directly. Apple allows you to set "aliases" but they are useless as they are simply another email ending with me.com. What I want is the ability to receive email at my own domain and reply to it on my iPad using mobile me. In other words, I should be able to reply as the person the email was addressed to rather than the login credentials of the account used to retrieve the message. OS 4 will offer a "unified inbox" and perhaps this feature will be included. I have complained to Apple about this and somehow I don't have the highest confidence they will actually fix it. This is the main reason I'm still walking around with a Blackberry instead of an iPhone.

As for subtle differences between Pages on iPad versus Pages on OSX. Where do I begin? I'm sure you have already read that import and export is broken, but I can give a specific example. I can import and export MS word documents on my Mac. On my iPad I can import MS word but only export pages or pdf. Not exactly the way to allow me to collaborate with the 99 percent of users that don't have access to Pages. I can't easily open odt files either (open office.org word processor). For this reason, I wish OOO was an iPad app but I doubt anybody will take the time to port it.

A glaring area of difficulty for me is drag and drop. This is something I do all the time on my Mac and cannot even think about doing on my iPad. You don't realize how nice it is to be able to "nudge" an object on the screen until you suddenly no longer have that ability. At this point, I should admit that I haven't spent that much time with Pages. The inability to deal with files and the email hurdles in my path prevent me from using it more than occasionally.

In Pages, there are menus that are present when the device is in portrait but not when it is in landscape. They are mentioned if you go through the tutorial but who does that? The most important menu is the one for closing the document you are working on and opening a different one. This is simply impossible in landscape. I would have to pick up my iPad and tilt it to potrait orientation simply to close the current document. Of course this didn't occur to me when I was using it in its Apple case folded to hold it at a convenient angle for typing. I only found out after searching the web and reading the aforementioned tutorial.

 

[Gib]

A glaring area of difficulty for me is drag and drop. This is something I do all the time on my Mac and cannot even think about doing on my iPad. You don't realize how nice it is to be able to "nudge" an object on the screen until you suddenly no longer have that ability. At this point, I should admit that I haven't spent that much time with Pages. The inability to deal with files and the email hurdles in my path prevent me from using it more than occasionally.

This doesn't seem to be a problem for me. You can move images around easily by nudging them, resizing them, etc. You can reorder a list of bullet points, as well as increasing/decreasing their indentation by dragging the bullet. You can't really drag and drop text to a new location, like in Pages or Word 08, but you can always cut/copy/paste.

In Pages, there are menus that are present when the device is in portrait but not when it is in landscape. They are mentioned if you go through the tutorial but who does that? The most important menu is the one for closing the document you are working on and opening a different one. This is simply impossible in landscape. I would have to pick up my iPad and tilt it to potrait orientation simply to close the current document. Of course this didn't occur to me when I was using it in its Apple case folded to hold it at a convenient angle for typing. I only found out after searching the web and reading the aforementioned tutorial.

Fixed in the update Apple released a few days ago... menus are the same now in portrait or landscape.

 

[Stealthipad]

I would like the ability to set up folders for Office files and if MS does not do a iPad app, I hope some one does.

 

[Night Spring]

I can import and export MS word documents on my Mac. On my iPad I can import MS word but only export pages or pdf.

That's not true. You can export as MS Word doc. That option is right there alongside Pages and PDF whenever you evoke the export function or you email your document. And if you send your document to iWork.com, you can then download it from there in any of those three formats.

 

[r0k]

This doesn't seem to be a problem for me. You can move images around easily by nudging them, resizing them, etc. You can reorder a list of bullet points, as well as increasing/decreasing their indentation by dragging the bullet. You can't really drag and drop text to a new location, like in Pages or Word 08, but you can always cut/copy/paste.



Fixed in the update Apple released a few days ago... menus are the same now in portrait or landscape.

I received that update but did not get a chance to check it out. Good news! Thanks for mentioning this. I'll have to update this in my iPad review as well.

That's not true. You can export as MS Word doc. That option is right there alongside Pages and PDF whenever you evoke the export function or you email your document. And if you send your document to iWork.com, you can then download it from there in any of those three formats.

I wonder if this is another thing fixed in the update? I seem to remember this option was not present the last time I tried an export about a month ago. I'll look again.

 

[Gib]

I wonder if this is another thing fixed in the update? I seem to remember this option was not present the last time I tried an export about a month ago. I'll look again.

Pages could always export as .doc files. Numbers and Keynote were not (and are still not, if I remember correctly) able to export as .xls or .ppt files.