I am sure someone here will know this…

We have just been giving a ipad and my Wife has just asked if she can work on doc, docx, xls, xlsx files on the ipad while on the train to work?

Ta.

viewing is easy.

editing isn’t brilliant. keynote is good, pages is ok, numbers I have yet to get to grips with.

there are some other office apps that claim to be able to do it but none are great.

Apparently there is a MS office ipad app expected in the new year.

You can connect a BT keyboard to the iPad which makes officing a lot easier. There are even some cases which have a built-in BT keyboard.

OP – easy answer , yes, just get Pages and Numbers, Apples versions of Word and Excel. Yes, they take some time to learn as they are different but they work fine. Well, at least the OSX versions do. 🙂

Thanks jam bo will check those out

Although with Pages the answer is “Yes” its not really compatable with Word.

Although both will create, save and open a .docx file the formatting, styles, fonts and all the other usefull stuff is different. Therefore assuming you could create a word file on a PC at work, open it on the iPad in pages, make some edits, and then open it again on the PC, would create a whole world of pain.

A pain I have experienced.

I find it easier to convert the word file to PDF, scribble all over it in the Adobe PDF app, and then next time I’m on a PC do all of the actual editing.

It might be worth also looking at Picsel Smart Office 2 – it’s a bit klunky but pretty cheap (£6.99 currently) and does do some things that the Apple office apps can’t, such as printing to normal (non-AirPrint) printers.

http://www.picselsmartoffice.com/

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/smart-office-2/id504520620?mt=8

I’ve had little success with Excel sheets – the formulas tend to cause the problems. And what use is an Excel sheet without formulae and functions? 🙄

*feeling smug having just bought an MS surface with Office 2013*

🙂

*feeling smug having just bought an MS surface with Office 2013*

Enjoy it whilst it lasts!

I find Kingsoft Office works really well on Android and it is free, maybe that is available on the ipad.

titusrider – Member

*feeling smug having just bought an MS surface with Office 2013*

Quite right they look great

Yup, I think the Surface looks rather good too..

I use Picsel and it’s ok, ok for small stuff, pants with anything tech (if you call Pivots tech)

T’is ok for basics.

just bought an MS surface with Office 2013

Isn’t Surface Pro out very soon?

Should You Get The Surface RT, Or Wait For The Surface Pro [Opinion]

The simple answer is: editing basic documents on a iPad is fine. Don’t bother trying with anything complicated though.

p.s. surface pro may be rather nice, but it’s way more expensive than the RT (since it’s a proper computer).

as above surface pro will be close to a grand and is a laptop not a tablet. I wanted a tablet 🙂

just bought an MS surface with Office 2013

Now we know who bought it.

Documents to Go gives native access to MS office documents but the iPad isn’t the best device to be editing them on.

To be honest I’m finding that using Google Apps and Google drive is better than Apple Icloud based applications, I’ve tried both, I’ve got numbers, it sucks, doesn’t like vlookups, likes them even less if there is an ‘Isna’ command involved.

You can and I have got a keyboard, but seriously, if you want something light to mess with spreadsheets with any serious purpose get a macbook air. Ipads are OK to look at stuff, using spreadsheets as price lists, presentations, pdq’s of brochures, but to actually do anything they are a bit lame imv.

But if you absolutely must then everything is a lot easier to transfer with Google drive and Google apps.

igrf

agreed

I’d have thought working via google docs might be the way to go. Convert to .docx at the end if needed.

*feeling smug having just bought an MS surface with Office 2013*

That’s like feeling great about fairy liquid when you have hours of washing up to do.