Pages and ms word?

[palpatine]

Right, my bad lol. I had to re-read the posts here, I believe my icloud question was already answered as well I'll blame this on my six month old = sleep deprivation.

On that note I think I am just going to get pages. Mainly b/c of the UI and I have no need for power points, spreadsheets, etc. I don't think I'll be that great at the *italics* and **bold** system and hopefully with icloud it'll do all that I need.

sounds like a good idea

evernote is free, though, so you may want to at least give it a try. it has all of the rich text features you are looking for. of course, pages is quite pretty, and has more formatting features, but the lack of syncing is definitely something that discourages me from using it.

 

[Ruffian829]

I read somewhere that evermore doesn't store docs on the iPad, that they are stored on the internet/server. Is this correct? I'm often without Internet so that is what I shyed away from it.

 

[palpatine]

I read somewhere that evermore doesn't store docs on the iPad, that they are stored on the internet/server. Is this correct? I'm often without Internet so that is what I shyed away from it.

that is partly correct.

the free version doesn't have the capability to store notes on the iPad. if you do not have regular access, then it sounds like evernote would be a poor choice for you.

the paid version (premium) does enable you to save notes on your iPad. it also has a bunch of other useful functions that you may or may not need. for example, the cumulative storage is pretty cool. 1gb per month, so at the end of each year you'll have 12gb of stuff stored.

 

[FloatingBones]

i did not say it was a hardware issue, and i did not mean to imply that. it is apparently a software issue, and apple did not design the ios to handle rich text well. for example, safari seems to be missing some component that would have enabled developers to create something browser based to work around ios problems.

The most precise thing to say is that it's an API issue. The OS X codebase has an API for rich text that is not yet available in iOS.

Pages on the iPad does the equivalent of rich text -- inside of the app. A developer with a large amount of resources could do the same thing. A small development shop with a code base using the RTF API on the Mac would wait for iOS to have that API before porting their app.

I have no inside information on if or when RTF will be available, but it makes common sense that the iOS APIs will continue to get richer over time (to coin a phrase).

anyhow, as i said, writing with minimal markup seems to solve most of my formatting needs, it takes up less memory, and the final product is widely supported.

Palpatine's manual mechanism of doing markup is called MultiMarkdown. MMD is based on the Markdown syntax originally created by John Gruber. For those wishing to enter text an iPad for a larger project, it's an excellent way to add basic formatting as you go.

Palpatine also mentioned Scrivener, which is a highly-regarded Mac application for gathering research for a project and writing papers. Scrivener works with MMD. It has a stellar reputation in the MAS, but the developer recommends you download the 30-day trial on the website to try it out. The developer does most of the support through his own forums, which is an excellent way to learn about his philosophy and the product.

It is exactly the design and hardware of the iPad that make it VERY INCONVENIENT TO USE as a device to produce/write large masses of text, and the main reason is that it is (just) a tablet or just a screen, without a physical keyboard, which you are absolutely dependent on to make a longer text. Of course, you may have an external physical keyboard, but that is NOT the point here, because that makes it necessary to carry around TWO units, a screen (called iPad) AND a keyboard.

If you stick your head into college lecture halls, you'll see quite a few iPads with keyboards using one of the integrated holders (making everything one piece). At the same time, the iPad's built-in keyboard is more than sufficient for capturing a short idea or reference at the library.

I think Palpatine's approach of using an iPad as a satellite while regularly migrating the data to a Mac very smart. He's clearly taken a lot of time to research a workflow that works for him.

Palpatine: if you have a web-presence or blog somewhere, you might want to make a post showing your workflow. You could start a blog on blogger and just make one entry showing what you've got. It's difficult for people just starting out to visualize your solution from incomplete information. Once you did that, you could just put a link to it in any article discussing this topic.

Thank you for doing the research then discussing the workflow that you use on your iPad and Mac. It takes work to figure these things out and it takes time to share them with the community.

 

[palpatine]

Palpatine: if you have a web-presence or blog somewhere, you might want to make a post showing your workflow. You could start a blog on blogger and just make one entry showing what you've got. It's difficult for people just starting out to visualize your solution from incomplete information. Once you did that, you could just put a link to it in any article discussing this topic.

Thanks for the kind words. So far the MMD solution is working pretty well for me, and as someone who spent years in the Windows universe with applications like BladeWiki that use something similar, it isn't a difficult transition. I imagine it might be a little more difficult for the uninitiated, though. At any rate, your encouragement in this direction has really paid off, and I am getting a lot more use out of Scrivener too.

I am giving a presentation in a few days on computing in academia to faculty and students at my university, so I'll probably take that opportunity to write something up and put it on the web. Thanks again for the encouragement!