I've been doing research on both of these, but I'm having a hard time choosing between the two. Right now I'm leaning towards Documents to Go because its a universal app, but if QuickOffice HD is better, I'm willing to spring for that even though its not universal. Any comparisons between the two?
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QuickOffice vs. Documents to Go?
- Thread starter mchank
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I've always used D2G, mainly because of the file sync system they have. However, since I set up my own version of this with Airsharing and an Automator workflow, I'm less tied to D2G.
I downloaded Quickoffice out of curiosity, and much prefer the interface. I think it much more iPad friendly and generally intuitive for creating and editing big documents. The spreadsheet app also includes 'merge cells' which D2G doesn't (I think I'm right in saying that?) which is essential for the sort of work I do.
Still have to use D2G for Powerpoint though, although I believe this is a free update coming soon to QO.
Tables seem to be handled much better in Quick office, although I'm not sure whether it has the same ability to display comments added as D2G goes ( in a little bubble).
So, unless you need it for the file sync system or PowerPoint editing, I recommend Quickoffice based on preference on the UI and a couple of extra useful functions.
Will be interested to hear what others say....
I downloaded Quickoffice out of curiosity, and much prefer the interface. I think it much more iPad friendly and generally intuitive for creating and editing big documents. The spreadsheet app also includes 'merge cells' which D2G doesn't (I think I'm right in saying that?) which is essential for the sort of work I do.
Still have to use D2G for Powerpoint though, although I believe this is a free update coming soon to QO.
Tables seem to be handled much better in Quick office, although I'm not sure whether it has the same ability to display comments added as D2G goes ( in a little bubble).
So, unless you need it for the file sync system or PowerPoint editing, I recommend Quickoffice based on preference on the UI and a couple of extra useful functions.
Will be interested to hear what others say....
I am glad you posted this information! I looked at quick office briefly to figure out if it is right for me. I needed to do primarily ppt viewing and syncing, so it sounds like I should stick to Docs to go for now.
QuickOffice lacks, among other things, a search function, which means I can't use it for storing long documents. It looks great on the iPad but basic Office features are missing.
I asked them why, and was told officially via Facebook that the developers wanted to rush the app out to users as quickly as possible. I asked when other features would be added and was told to go to the QuickOffice webpage, where I could vote for additional features.
I replied that I didn't feel I should have to vote for basic stuff like a search button, especially as I was buying the app for the second time, and the iPhone version was much better at launch.
No doubt the app will indeed improve with updates, but I don't like how these companies operate. There's a focus on getting the product into the store, not on usability, which conflicts somewhat with the claims made by their own marketing departments.
I asked them why, and was told officially via Facebook that the developers wanted to rush the app out to users as quickly as possible. I asked when other features would be added and was told to go to the QuickOffice webpage, where I could vote for additional features.
I replied that I didn't feel I should have to vote for basic stuff like a search button, especially as I was buying the app for the second time, and the iPhone version was much better at launch.
No doubt the app will indeed improve with updates, but I don't like how these companies operate. There's a focus on getting the product into the store, not on usability, which conflicts somewhat with the claims made by their own marketing departments.
That's odd- my version of QO does have a search function for the docs editor- you just swipe the toolbar to the left to find it. It searches for whole/part words in a doc and highlights each instance of it. Is that what you mean or did I misunderstand?
Edit: total idiot, was just using Office 2, not quick office when I found the search function. Apologies- have too many document editors on my ipad at the moment!
Edit: total idiot, was just using Office 2, not quick office when I found the search function. Apologies- have too many document editors on my ipad at the moment!
Thanks for the tip about the QuickOffice feature vote page:
http://quickoffice.ideascale.com/a/ideafactory.do?discussionID=11123
I disagree with the view that they rushed this to market. Many of us were quite desperate for an Office-compatible program that was well-integrated with Dropbox. They got the essential features implemented with a well-designed iPad interface, which Docs to Go failed at miserably in my view. For me, personally, the find feature is trivial, and so I'd much rather have the current version up and running than wait for some ideal future version.
I like the voting page--very democratic, and it gives me some assurance that they actually care about what their customers think. It made me think about what my wish priorities were and about some other great possibilities that hadn't occurred to me before. Well worth a look.
http://quickoffice.ideascale.com/a/ideafactory.do?discussionID=11123
I disagree with the view that they rushed this to market. Many of us were quite desperate for an Office-compatible program that was well-integrated with Dropbox. They got the essential features implemented with a well-designed iPad interface, which Docs to Go failed at miserably in my view. For me, personally, the find feature is trivial, and so I'd much rather have the current version up and running than wait for some ideal future version.
I like the voting page--very democratic, and it gives me some assurance that they actually care about what their customers think. It made me think about what my wish priorities were and about some other great possibilities that hadn't occurred to me before. Well worth a look.
We all have different needs, so I'm glad QO works for others. I need to paste in images, search, and some features still available in Word alone. As with the iPhone, I will buy several Office apps and watch them grow.
If QO and D2G receive good updates I'll be happy enough.
I'm a long time D2G user (since the PalmOS days) and I bought the iPad version on launch day. I just downloaded QO as well.
I work almost entirely with Office 2007 (.xlsx) spreadsheets so haven't looked at the word processor much at all. My initial impressions are annoyingly typical of the iPad app world, i.e. if only there was an app that combined the best of both then we'd have a winner. Here's my quick take:
POSITIVES FOR QO
Yup, the UI is much nicer than D2G. D2G has a really crowded toolbar at the bottom whereas QO does it all with far fewer buttons which bring up pop-up panes that contain a set of related functionality. For example D2G has separate toolbar buttons for inserting and deleting rows & columns whereas QO has a single button that invokes a pop-up that then has the tools to do all column and row manipulations.
POSITIVES FOR D2G
On my first test sheet D2G rendered it perfectly whereas QO was having a formatting issue with certain cells that show correctly as something like "-65.60" in D2G but "#######" in QO. I haven't investigated exactly what it is that upsets QO about these cells yet.
It works better when on a low zoom setting (i.e. small font sizes). QO doesn't resize the legends in the rows so, as the row heights get smaller, the numbers identifying each row don't fit properly. Also, I found D2G zooms more smoothly so it's easier to pinch-zoom the size accurately, e.g. to get all 12 months of a financial spreadsheet in view.
It's a tough call but on balance I'd give the UI for sheet switching to D2G. QO makes it look just like a desktop with tabs along the bottom which is quicker to navigate around but, because the tabs are always there, it steals a bit of screen space. D2G has a button that takes one to a separate switching screen to change sheet within the workbook. Because so many of my workbooks are set up as a summary sheet with background sheets for the detailed calculations I often only want to look at the summary and rarely need to switch to other sheets so for me the D2G UI works better but for others it may well be different.
SUMMARY
The above are my very first impressions and I'm really torn because (apart from the sheet/tabs issue) the QO UI is much nicer, to the extent that it really makes me want to try and switch over to it, but I get the impression that the basic spreadsheet engine in D2G is more polished (e.g. my QO formatting issues that just worked with D2G).
On balance I think I'm going to carry on with D2G but keep QO installed so that I get update notifications and, once it's matured a bit, I can definitely see myself moving because of the UI.
I think it's a smaller leap for QO to make their spreadsheet engine more robust and capable (they should be doing that anyway) than it is for D2G to admit they're wrong (in my opinion) and make a fundamental change in their UI philosophy which would be a disruptive change for their users so I suspect that it is QO that has the better chance of evolving to be the best of both worlds.
Final soundbite on my view on the spreadsheets right now - it's a draw, no clear winner.
- Julian
I work almost entirely with Office 2007 (.xlsx) spreadsheets so haven't looked at the word processor much at all. My initial impressions are annoyingly typical of the iPad app world, i.e. if only there was an app that combined the best of both then we'd have a winner. Here's my quick take:
POSITIVES FOR QO
Yup, the UI is much nicer than D2G. D2G has a really crowded toolbar at the bottom whereas QO does it all with far fewer buttons which bring up pop-up panes that contain a set of related functionality. For example D2G has separate toolbar buttons for inserting and deleting rows & columns whereas QO has a single button that invokes a pop-up that then has the tools to do all column and row manipulations.
POSITIVES FOR D2G
On my first test sheet D2G rendered it perfectly whereas QO was having a formatting issue with certain cells that show correctly as something like "-65.60" in D2G but "#######" in QO. I haven't investigated exactly what it is that upsets QO about these cells yet.
It works better when on a low zoom setting (i.e. small font sizes). QO doesn't resize the legends in the rows so, as the row heights get smaller, the numbers identifying each row don't fit properly. Also, I found D2G zooms more smoothly so it's easier to pinch-zoom the size accurately, e.g. to get all 12 months of a financial spreadsheet in view.
It's a tough call but on balance I'd give the UI for sheet switching to D2G. QO makes it look just like a desktop with tabs along the bottom which is quicker to navigate around but, because the tabs are always there, it steals a bit of screen space. D2G has a button that takes one to a separate switching screen to change sheet within the workbook. Because so many of my workbooks are set up as a summary sheet with background sheets for the detailed calculations I often only want to look at the summary and rarely need to switch to other sheets so for me the D2G UI works better but for others it may well be different.
SUMMARY
The above are my very first impressions and I'm really torn because (apart from the sheet/tabs issue) the QO UI is much nicer, to the extent that it really makes me want to try and switch over to it, but I get the impression that the basic spreadsheet engine in D2G is more polished (e.g. my QO formatting issues that just worked with D2G).
On balance I think I'm going to carry on with D2G but keep QO installed so that I get update notifications and, once it's matured a bit, I can definitely see myself moving because of the UI.
I think it's a smaller leap for QO to make their spreadsheet engine more robust and capable (they should be doing that anyway) than it is for D2G to admit they're wrong (in my opinion) and make a fundamental change in their UI philosophy which would be a disruptive change for their users so I suspect that it is QO that has the better chance of evolving to be the best of both worlds.
Final soundbite on my view on the spreadsheets right now - it's a draw, no clear winner.
- Julian
Just got QO. I like the UI and the integration with DropBox and Google Docs works smoothly. I dun seem to be able to insert images into the word document though.
You can't. I mentioned it to them and was told they never claimed you could, so there. D2G has the same problem.
Photo insertion
You can insert an image into Office HD. I've been considering one of the others but this is important so think I'll just etick with the app thwt works fine for me.
You can insert an image into Office HD. I've been considering one of the others but this is important so think I'll just etick with the app thwt works fine for me.