Last June I posted my iPad Office app showdown article looking at four available applications. This post has been extremely popular with readers and I have since received dozens of email inquiries for an updated article to see if my conclusions are the same or if there are more choices this year with the iPad and iPad 2 now available from Apple. As you will read in this article looking at six applications/suites there may not be just a single application that meets all of your needs, but there are a couple that clearly should be skipped and others that tend to stand out above the crowd.
In addition to the following text, I posted an extensive image gallery containing over 100 screenshots from the six applications. Make sure to check out the summary tables on the last page where I present some quick comparisons of all six apps, followed by my personal preferences.
In this article I present my experiences with the following (in alphabetical order):
- Documents 2
- Documents To Go
- iWork apps (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote)
- Office2 HD
- Quickoffice Pro HD
- Smart Office
My conclusion in June 2010 was that iWork was enjoyable, but had some limits at the time that I just couldn’t live with (import/export limitations primarily) while QuickOffice was my overall favorite that has since then even gotten better so make sure to read through to see if it is still what I recommend.
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Back when the iPad launched the iWorks suite was one of the few Office application choices available. Developers saw the value in the iPad’s large display and iOS platform and we now have several applications for working with Office documents. While there are many viewers, including one built into iOS, I searched for the top apps that let you create and edit documents and found the 6 discussed in detail in this article. A couple are clearly outmatched and should not even be considered for the serious user, but I figured I would buy them, test them, and let you know about them so you can make your own informed purchase decision.
Documents 2
Documents 2 from SavySoda is a very inexpensive application at just $1.99, but as you can see it tries to do more than just Office work and thus doesn’t excel in anything. The application website states that there are eight premium apps within this suite, but essentially it lets you work with text documents, comma-separated value spreadsheets, photos, a paint canvas, and audio recordings. Google Docs is the only cloud service supported in Documents 2 while most others support at least five cloud services.
New document creation is supported in .txt and .csv formats while you can open and then edit existing Word and Excel files. The user interface is ridiculous with formatting options hidden as tiny icons way down in the far left corner. Formatting is also lost when you open files in Documents 2 and I honestly would not recommend considering it, even for just $2. It has a rating on iTunes of 2.5 stars and I personally wouldn’t rank it that high.
Documents To Go version 4.0
I have been using DataViz’s Documents To Go applications for years on my smartphones and this application always seemed to be in direct competition with Quickoffice. The Documents To Go Premium version is available for $16.99 while the regular suite version costs $9.99. The Premium version gives you support for PowerPoint editing and online storage services. It is a universal application so you can use it on your iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone too.
Documents To Go v4.0 focuses on maintaining original document formatting through their InTact Technology and thus you will not see a degradation in your Office document with this application. The application is not as visually appealing as the iWork or Quickoffice suites, but it is very functional and I only found it lacking in a couple of areas (described below and shown in my summary table).
Documents To Go v4.0 starts up in the file browser page with icons at the bottom to switch between viewing your local files (transferred to the iPad via iTunes and email attachments), desktop files (way to browse your desktop via the desktop application), and cloud files. Documents To Go supports Google Docs, Box.net, Dropbox, iDisk, and SugarSync online storage services and you can even add multiple accounts for each of these. New file formats can either be in MS Office 97-2004/XP or MS Office 2007-2008 formats. Your recent files appear on the in the main window file browser display. In the lower right corner you will find an icon that lets you create a new Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document or an email with attachments.
When you launch the word processing module you will see a full row of icons along the bottom that are a bit small and blend in with the document background. I was hoping DataViz would update these in this version, but they still look a bit lame. Tapping these icons pops up a menu with quick functions and an option for More… that will then pop-up a much more user friendly formatting interface (see my image gallery for screenshots of this). There are icons for save/o[em, text formatting, paragraph alignment, bullets & numbering, and document stats. DataViz did reduce the number of icons significantly from the version I looked at last year, but I think they can still do some work on the viewability of them and I would like to have seen slightly larger icons with some color added. The traditional iOS tap and hold zoom functionality is supported, as well as the iPad keyboard.
The spreadsheet module has the same bottom row of icon design with different functions that are made for spreadsheet functions. These include icons for save/open, cell formatting, inserting and deleting rows and columns, and hiding and unhiding rows or columns. There is an option to freeze panes and I know that people have been asking me about this capability. Double tapping a cell lets you get into the cell details where you can tap the fx icon to see all the available functions and enter them into the cell. You can also double tap and hold to select multiple cells. Chart creation is not supported in DTG.
Working with presentations is about the same as the other modules with a similar line of icons along the bottom that represent the following functions; open/save, jump to slide/view outline, insert/duplicate/delete a slide, and view the slide picker or full screen mode. When you choose to create a new presentation you have three template options; casual, corporate, and simple. Creation is pretty basic and advanced functions like including photos, tables, and more is not supported. You can create show notes though in the right hand side notebook area.
