Need Office on your iPad now? Try these capable alternatives (screenshot gallery)

We heard the news this week that Office for the iPad may not be coming until late 2014. If I have some heavy lifting to do with the full Office suite on the go, I use my Surface Pro. However, you can do plenty with Office documents on the iPad using one of these capable alternatives.

I would love to see some study results documenting how many people actually use an Office-compatible program on their iPad. I consider myself a power user and rarely use my iPad to create or edit Office documents and wonder if there is a real need for the full Microsoft Office suite or if these available, low-cost alternatives will meet most people's needs.

I wrote my first iPad Office app showdown in 2010 and wrote about the iWork suite, Documents To Go, Office2 HD, and Quickoffice. I then followed up a year later in my 2011 showdown that added Documents 2 and Smart Office to the lineup.

As I went back to my iPad and updated to the latest version, I found that the original four I looked at in 2010 have all been updated and are the ones I recommend you check out. There are new features, such as track changes and print support that really make these alternatives likely just fine for the majority of people.

Do you use an Office-compatible suite on your iPad and if so, which one do you prefer? What limitations do you find that require the full version of Microsoft Office for your iPad?