You still ca n’t do everything on an iPad that you could on a Mac . conjecture you create a work text file — a word processing filing cabinet , spreadsheet , display , or PDF , for example — on your Mac , and want to edit or gloss it on your iPad and then bring back it to your Mac as intact as possible . It ’s doable , but it is n’t necessarily easy , and some papers wo n’t survive the round - slip completely intact .
Office Documents
It ’s taken for granted that pretty much anyone with a Mac ( or Windows PC ) can open Microsoft Office written document . ( For the purpose of this article , Microsoft Office papers means those adjust to the old , and more widely used , Office format : .doc , .xls , and .ppt , rather than the more recent XML - based .docx , .xlsx , and .pptx formats . ) Even if you do n’t have a copy of Office itself , you’re able to use any of the many inexpensive or free third - party applications that open Office documents and bear on most ( if not all ) of their formatting .
The situation is wholly different on an iPad . For starters , there ’s no Microsoft Office for iOS . Many apps can show Office documents , few can edit them . worsened , you may lose formatting and other elements ( such as board and graphics ) from a written document in the course of bout - touch off it between your Mac and your iPad . And because iOS has no shared file - storehouse organization , Just moving those documents to and from the tablet can be a challenge , too .
give all that , what ’s the best , most convenient way to transfer Office documents to your iPad , edit out them there , and then transfer them back to your Mac ? The solvent bet on the kind of text file you ’re working with .
Documents To Go can’t create tables, but it displays them, lets you edit their contents, and preserves them when you save the document.
Word ( .doc)Only a few iPad apps can edit Word document ; even fewer can do a reasonably good job of it , including hold back all the character and paragraph format of the original .
Doc2 HD , a $ 6 word C.P.U. from byte2 , countenance you add and edit fictional character font , size of it , style , and colour ; paragraph alignment and indent ; bulleted and numbered tilt ; table ; and graphics . alas , saving edited documents strips out quite a bit of Word format ( including style and bookmarks ) and bust up special characters . ( The same vendor ’s $ 8 Office2 HD entourage ( ) does the same and append spreadsheet redaction . )
DataViz’sDocuments To Go ( ) and Documents To Go Premium ( ) rent you edit Word file , and both provide fairish format control . Although you ca n’t add elements such as graphics or tables , you could see them in imported papers . Crucially , Documents To Go preserves all of the single file ’s original formatting and contents during the importation and exportation appendage , so even elements that ca n’t be display ( such as footnotes and tracked modification ) appear correctly when the written document render to your Mac .
While Docs2 and Office2 let you edit tables and graphics in Word documents, both strip out some other key pieces of formatting.
Documents To Go ca n’t create table , but it display them , allow you edit their contents , and preserve them when you economize the text file . Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite ( ) , from Quickoffice , also preserve the formatting and other component of the original file when you edit and export it . alas , its editing capability are even more modified than Documents To Go’s — only canonical fiber styles ( bluff , italic , and underline ) , font , size , schoolbook and highlight color , and paragraph attributes such as alignment and bulleted lists are supported .
If you necessitate to redact Word files on your iPad , I think your safe choice is between Pages , which offer up extensive editing capability but strips out elements from the original , and an app like Documents To Go or Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite , which bear on the formatting and contents of the original but pop the question limited redaction capabilities . In my experience , keep text file fidelity is more significant than having the arrange tools ; I ’m more likely to be editing for content on an iPad than add together fancy features . Since Documents To Go has more formatting tools than Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite , that ’s the app I ’d opt .
A typical work flow might go like this : site the file you want to edit on your iPad and drag it from your Mac to Dropbox or MobileMe iDisk . In Documents To Go , navigate to that data file and tap it once to download it to your iPad ; rap it a second time to spread it for redaction . After making any desire changes , tap the text file icon in the lower left nook of the screen and then intercept either Save ( to keep the same name ) or Save As ( to give the data file a new name ) . Tap the remaining pointer at the top of the screen and , when prompted to synchronise pending files , water tap Yes . The app will then copy the emended filing cabinet back to the cloud , where you’re able to call up it from your Mac .
Excel ( .xls)The write up for Excel files is like to that for Word files , except that your choices are n’t quite so irritating .
Sheet2 HD , the spreadsheet app from byte2 , will allow you cut Office spreadsheet ( as will the spreadsheet module in Office2 ) . Most spreadsheet features are keep when you save a worksheet , but not all ; for object lesson , charts disappear wholly .
written document To Go , Documents To Go Premium , and Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite also support Excel - file editing , provide a reasonable set of spreadsheet characteristic , and keep many elements , include charts .
While Docs2 and Office2 let you cut tables and nontextual matter in Word documents , both strip out some other key pieces of data formatting . If it ’s essential to maintain all formatting and datum , Numbers , Sheet2 HD , and Office2 HD are not proficient choices ; Documents To Go or Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite are your best bet . Between those two , your choice calculate on the user interface or feature film set you prefer . If you need to edit out both Word and Excel files on your iPad , get Documents To Go . If that ’s your choice , the work flow you ’d comply is exactly the same as for Word files .
PowerPoint ( .ppt)When it occur to edit PowerPoint document on an iPad , your options are extremely modified . Office2 HD can display PowerPoint files , but it ca n’t edit them . That entail your option are either Apple ’s $ 10 Keynote ( ) or Documents To Go Premium Edition . A recent update to Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite added PowerPoint redaction , but it arrived too lately for us to evaluate for this story .
You wo n’t be surprised to learn that Keynote removes initialize and data point from PowerPoint papers upon importee ( full list of such changeshere ) , or that Documents To Go Premium preserves all the formatting . However , Keynote on the iPad is vastly more adequate to at creating , editing , and showing presentations . So if you need to make only minor edits , Documents To Go may be ok . But if you intend to do any important oeuvre , or to employ your iPad to melt down a intro ( by connecting it to a video display via the VGA adapter ) , Keynote makes more sense .
The easiest Keynote workflow is to replicate your presentation(s ) to iDisk . In Keynote , tap My Presentations , then the Import button , and then Copy From iDisk . sail to the file and exploit it to spell it . To export the file cabinet when you ’re done , tap My Presentations and then the Action button , then tap Copy to iDisk , and tap PowerPoint . Finally , navigate to the trust placement and tap Copy .
Google Docs
Google recently made it possible to edit Google Docs files on an iPad , using Safari . Because you could upload Microsoft Office papers to a Google Docs bill , that means you could theoretically edit out Office Commerce Department on your iPad by using Google as an intermediary . But while that unconscious process does indeed solve , it has some serious restriction .
For one thing , you have to exchange uploaded papers to Google ’s formats before you’re able to blue-pencil them . And , as is commonly the example with file imports , that conversion strips out formatting and other features .
For another , when you visit your Google Docs account on an iPad , Google by nonremittal exhibit the mobile version of the land site ; the redaction creature in that mobile version are exceedingly limited .
You could change over from the mobile to the regular version of Google ’s editors . ( For example , in Google Documents , you tap the Desktop data link at the bottom of the Sir Frederick Handley Page . ) But the controls in the desktop version were design for usance with a mouse , not a touch screen ; you could find it difficult ( or even impossible ) to do such basic things as selecting text edition or changing papers margins .
fourth-year Contributor Joe Kissell is the senior editor of TidBits and the author of the e - bookTake Control of Working with Your iPad(TidBits Publishing , 2010 ) .
