Quickoffice... iWorks... Docs2go... or???

[Mad Mac Maniac]

The quickoffice suites are now heavily discounted for black friday (I'm sure others are on their way too), so now is the best time to make a purchasing decision!

I know these office-type suites have been discussed in the past, but after searching it seems that they are all very old (and all pre-icloud). I think it's time for a more updated comparison.

Let's compare these things methodically. Those who have used them, please speak up and less us know what you think!

Price

QuickOffice: Cheapest if you only need iPhone or iPad version
iPhone: $8 (normally $15)
iPad: $12 (normally $20)
Total: $20

Docs2Go: Cheapest to buy it all
Universal: $17

iWork: Cheapest if you only need one app
Pages: $10
Numbers: $10
Keynote: $10
Total: $30

QuickOffice

• Very beautiful UI
• Contains all 3 apps in one
• Ability to sync through many cloud services (not iCloud?)
• Seems to be great developer support. Frequent updates
• Good office compatibility... what about iWork?

Docs2Go

• Very functional (has many smaller features others lack such as word count)
• Contains all 3 apps in one
• Ability to sync through many services (not iCloud?)
• Lack of dev support? RIM bought them over a year ago and since then there have only been very minor bug/stability updates
• Good office compatibility... what about iWork?
  

iWork

• Gorgeous UI
• purchase all apps individually
• Ability to sync through iCloud
• Do all non-iCloud sync's seem like workarounds? (load off iCloud.com?)
• Good iWork compatibility... what about office?
• Apple dev support

 

[palpatine]

Maybe I misunderstood your post, but I don't see that Pages is discounted at all right now. It costs 9.99, which is the same price I paid several months ago.

I hope you are not asking for people to compare all of these wildly different products in one thread. That is a lot, and there are so many variables (what are you going to do with it?) that I doubt it will result in a very helpful discussion.

 

[LostLogik]

I don't know about offering a comparison but I have and have used all of the above. I stopped using QuickOffice for DocsToGo and then stopped using DocsToGo for the iWorks suite (I bought all of them). And that's where I stopped changing

My only gripe with iWork's is it doesn't do DropBox but there are ways around that.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

Maybe I misunderstood your post, but I don't see that Pages is discounted at all right now. It costs 9.99, which is the same price I paid several months ago.

I hope you are not asking for people to compare all of these wildly different products in one thread. That is a lot, and there are so many variables (what are you going to do with it?) that I doubt it will result in a very helpful discussion.

I said QuickOffice is discounted. And that others probably will be soon also. (docs2go, Office^2 HD, etc) But I doubt iWork will change, Apple doesn't do that type of stuff.

I listed 3 pretty similar products... I don't see how comparisons/discussion can't be made? I didn't want it to be completely focused on just my needs, because I want other people with other needs to be able to read this thread and determine which would work best for their needs...

But since you asked. I have office on my Mac, so easy compatibility/syncing with that is probably the largest factor. I have both an iPhone and iPad, but I honestly doubt I would ever use the apps on my iPhone... although I am the type of person that just WANTS to have it there just in case. I probably wouldn't need powerpoint (at least in the near future), but again I just WANT to have it just in case... The truth is I just don't really use the office suit much at all anymore. I'm a recent (2 years) college grad, and I'm still trying to adjust to the mindset that I actually don't use office much. Still I can't imagine owning a PC without word and I know that as I depend more and more on my iPad the same will be true. So I've kind of been sitting back waiting for the apps to develop and hit a big price drop before I make a purchase

I don't know about offering a comparison but I have and have used all of the above. I stopped using QuickOffice for DocsToGo and then stopped using DocsToGo for the iWorks suite (I bought all of them). And that's where I stopped changing

My only gripe with iWork's is it doesn't do DropBox but there are ways around that.

So what made you stick with iWork? Do you have iWork on your Mac? If so, would you have gone a different way if you didn't?

 

[gumblecosby]

I regret buying quickoffice. It's missing spellcheck and can't insert images into documents. It's also missing the "open in" function.
I want to keep my documents in goodreader but quickoffice does not let me transfer docs directly into another app. This is a problem when there is no wifi available.

I then bought Pages which has all of these features and it works well for an iPad app.

I've heard good things about office2hd. You might want to look at that program also.

 

[LostLogik]

So what made you stick with iWork? Do you have iWork on your Mac? If so, would you have gone a different way if you didn't?

Quite simply because yes, I have iWork's on my Macs. The cloud syncing is so brilliant that it makes life so easy. That said, I do like using the mobile iWork's apps as well, and they look so good and work so well and I prefer their UI over the others (with QO the worst). If I didn't have iWork's on my Macs would I still use it on my iPad? Probably.

Hope that helps but let me know if you want anything specific.

 

[matt90036]

I would go with pages. I had pretty choppy experience with docs2go and quickoffice. And you know that apple will not abandon development.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

Hmmm... So what is the best way to sync iWork on iPad to office on a Mac? And how does the compatibility compare to d2g and QO?

 

[palpatine]

Hmmm... So what is the best way to sync iWork on iPad to office on a Mac? And how does the compatibility compare to d2g and QO?

sync pages to word? not possible. i suppose you could open your pages documentin icloud using word. there will almost certainly be some incompatible elements.

word is one of the most robust word processors in the world. unless you are using some advanced features like vertical text for asian characters (unavailable in pages to the best of my kowledge), then pages will be fine. it has come a long ways and is more than enough for most people.

the same could be said for the rest of iworks. in fact, many people prefer it to office.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

Well maybe "sync" is a bad choice of words, but is there a way to easily edit a document on pages for iPad.. Then open it on word for Mac, edit.... And then open the newly edited doc on pages for iPad? I know it won't work as seamlessly as iCloud, but can docs in the cloud provide a decent workaround?

Maybe one day I'll switch over to iWork on my Mac, but not yet.

 

[palpatine]

Well maybe "sync" is a bad choice of words, but is there a way to easily edit a document on pages for iPad.. Then open it on word for Mac, edit.... And then open the newly edited doc on pages for iPad? I know it won't work as seamlessly as iCloud, but can docs in the cloud provide a decent workaround?

Maybe one day I'll switch over to iWork on my Mac, but not yet.

your mileage will vary. the less formatting you have, the better. i'd definitely switch over to pages if you are serious about doing this. pages works the best syncing between devices. it doesn't involve any thought or effort at all and the interface is a breeze to use.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

Wow quickOffice just slashed prices again for a one day sale of $5 and $8.... That's the lowest they have ever been.

Sorry I'm just a junky for sales. Haha

 

[naveeed]

thnx for the info

thnx for the info

 

[mkrishnan]

Wow quickOffice just slashed prices again for a one day sale of $5 and $8.... That's the lowest they have ever been.

Sorry I'm just a junky for sales. Haha

Yeah, the app store isn't really working for me right now, but I'm thinking about picking up a copy since it's such a nice deal, for occasional use.

 

[matt90036]

Wow quickOffice just slashed prices again for a one day sale of $5 and $8.... That's the lowest they have ever been.

Sorry I'm just a junky for sales. Haha

you are better off using that 5 or 8 bucks towars iWorks.

 

[Soccer5se]

I have Quickoffice Pro. I use it mainly for displaying power points on an HD TV. I don't use it for word processing because it is too limited. I regret paying $14 for it. If I could go back I would buy Pages and Keynote. Pages is compatible with Word and has a lot more features than Quickoffice Pro.

Or you could wait for Microsoft to develop Office for the Ipad.

Rich

 

[archdelux]

Quickoffice works great, except one thing I hate about quick office is that it doesn't display the arrows I make in word (ie -->) which word turns into actual arrows.. do Pages or the others do this? I have a feeling that none of these apps can do that.. which is unfortunate because it messes up the formatting if I make a file with arrows, then open it in quickoffice, edit it and then save it again...

 

[B.A.T]

I like iWork a lot but they really need to update the Mac version. What's it been now, 2.5 years since the last major upgrade?

 

[archdelux]

Quickoffice works great, except one thing I hate about quick office is that it doesn't display the arrows I make in word (ie -->) which word turns into actual arrows.. do Pages or the others do this? I have a feeling that none of these apps can do that.. which is unfortunate because it messes up the formatting if I make a file with arrows, then open it in quickoffice, edit it and then save it again...

any comments on this? Do all of these ipad word apps have this disadvantage or just quickoffice?

 

[mkrishnan]

any comments on this? Do all of these ipad word apps have this disadvantage or just quickoffice?

I can confirm that Apple's built-in handling (Mail) and Quickoffice don't manage this correctly. Here's an example (top is Word and bottom is QuickOffice).

I do have another quip about QuickOffice -- the Wifi disk mounting option is nice, but why on earth doesn't it support transferring files into / out of QuickOffice via iTunes using Apple's specified media? I have a ton of PPTs on my PC that I'd like to put in QO, and it would be a lot easier if it could be done this way.

 

[archdelux]

I can confirm that Apple's built-in handling (Mail) and Quickoffice don't manage this correctly. Here's an example (top is Word and bottom is QuickOffice).

Image

I do have another quip about QuickOffice -- the Wifi disk mounting option is nice, but why on earth doesn't it support transferring files into / out of QuickOffice via iTunes using Apple's specified media? I have a ton of PPTs on my PC that I'd like to put in QO, and it would be a lot easier if it could be done this way.

yeah - you're right..i hadn't noticed that even standard apple apps had this same issue. So I guess that means that an app can't get around it? And that all office apps will have this same issue?

 

[mkrishnan]

yeah - you're right..i hadn't noticed that even standard apple apps had this same issue. So I guess that means that an app can't get around it? And that all office apps will have this same issue?

I don't see why -- I don't think QO or the other apps are "forced" to rely on an Apple Office rendering engine in the same way that apps must use Apple's webkit HTML/javascript/etc engine. I wonder if it's a commercial issue. Office makes the arrows by autocorrecting the --> text into a Wingdings character. Wingdings, AFAIK, is a copyrighted font. LibreOffice on my Win7 netbook displays the document fine, but my netbook has Wingdings installed on it. It may be that QO and other apps don't have a license for wingdings and hasn't done the work to handle font substitution correctly.

 

[archdelux]

I don't see why -- I don't think QO or the other apps are "forced" to rely on an Apple Office rendering engine in the same way that apps must use Apple's webkit HTML/javascript/etc engine. I wonder if it's a commercial issue. Office makes the arrows by autocorrecting the --> text into a Wingdings character. Wingdings, AFAIK, is a copyrighted font. LibreOffice on my Win7 netbook displays the document fine, but my netbook has Wingdings installed on it. It may be that QO and other apps don't have a license for wingdings and hasn't done the work to handle font substitution correctly.

interesting..hadn't considered that. Is there a way then to stop Word from autocorrecting to windings so that everything will appear on my ipad fine (and vice versa)?

 

[mkrishnan]

interesting..hadn't considered that. Is there a way then to stop Word from autocorrecting to windings so that everything will appear on my ipad fine (and vice versa)?

Well, yes, with the caveat that then you won't have a fancy arrow either in Word or iOS. In Word 2007, I know that the location of this is:

Office button (whatever the big button in the upper left is called) ->
Word Options ->
Proofing ->
Autocorrect options ->
You'll see these in the "replace text as you type" section. You can turn that whole thing off, which will de-activate all the auto-corrects in the scrollbox, or you can manually delete the ones you don't want.