I've been struggling for some time to find a solution to this. My professors are ridiculous Powerpoint happy folks, and I've gotten very accustomed to taking notes on my laptop by utilizing the speaker notes space (then printing to PDF and uploading to Evernote - voila, their notes, my notes, searchable, categorized... beautiful.)

I don't understand why this is so freakin' hard to do on the iPad! DocsToGo does it, of course, but D2G also crashes every 30 seconds and hates Bluetooth keyboards, which makes it unspeakably frustrating when I'm in them middle of lecture dealing with crashing apps, error messages, or I can't type any text into a new .doc file.

Pages has presenter notes, but then doesn't save/export them?! ***? How is that useful?

Is there ANY other app that has this functionality? How about QuickOffice? Not dropping the $$ for that until I know more about it. I realize this is all still a developing area of iPad functionality but this seemed like such a simple thing to me until I tried it! Is there really no stable way to edit this very basic aspect of Powerpoint presenting?

Have you contacted DataViz about your problems with Documents To Go?

@twois-

I'll be curious along with you. I am going back to get a Masters and what the folks at the program tell me they do is convert the ppt slides to a PDF file, then use a program ( good reader, iAnnotate, etc) to the make notes on the slides with the PDF. I didn't ask them about the searching, but I would assume you could unless the additional notes are handwritten.

File management in general on the iPad sucks pretty bad. But, I guess it was designed mostly to be an entertainment device, but people are starting to see how great of a tablet it could be, but the I/O is just bad. Also, you seem to need several different apps to be able to handle different problems.


Coming back later after trying some apps that I have - as you note Docs to go works, although perhaps not ideally. I tried Goodreader which will import the ppt, but it won't let me annotate. Perhaps I am doing something wrong. Quick office will NOT let you add notes to slide. It's PowerPoint editing is only with the slides, and it does not let you choose slides with notes.
A program that I just tried is Noterize and you can import ppt and PDF. You can add notes to the slides although not in a traditional ppt method. But as long as things are typed, everything is searchable. Not sure also how robust the file system is, but with cloud storage, may not mean much. It is only $2.99 and you can check out the user manual at the website to see if it will do what you need it to. Has some nice functionality with sharing as well.


Http://www.Noterize.com/user%20guide.pdf

(I have gone a bit crazy and got a number of note taking apps as they are pretty inexpensive, and they all seem to have strengths and weaknesses. )

Originally Posted by twois

Is there ANY other app that has this functionality? How about QuickOffice? Not dropping the $$ for that until I know more about it.

Jailbreak dude. Don't hate ppl.

Originally Posted by pluto6

. . .I tried Goodreader which will import the ppt, but it won't let me annotate. Perhaps I am doing something wrong.

To annotate in GoodReader. Open the PDF, tap and hold on the document for a second or so. The pop-up annotation menu will appear.

Took me a couple tries to find it too.

BTW, GoodReader has some of the best annotation compatibility. I'm not so sure about being able to search and export notes later. You will probably have to do that on the computer in Adobe Reader, or Preview if you have a Mac.

Update: To change the property of the annotation tap-hold on it again to get another menu that includes property items. The rest is all about exploration.

Oops. Not reading close enough. I don't think GoodReader will annotate ppt, only pdf.

Originally Posted by Sam707

Originally Posted by twois

Is there ANY other app that has this functionality? How about QuickOffice? Not dropping the $$ for that until I know more about it.

Jailbreak dude. Don't hate ppl.

How will this help?

Originally Posted by twois

I've been struggling for some time to find a solution to this. My professors are ridiculous Powerpoint happy folks, and I've gotten very accustomed to taking notes on my laptop by utilizing the speaker notes space (then printing to PDF and uploading to Evernote - voila, their notes, my notes, searchable, categorized... beautiful.)

I don't understand why this is so freakin' hard to do on the iPad! DocsToGo does it, of course, but D2G also crashes every 30 seconds and hates Bluetooth keyboards, which makes it unspeakably frustrating when I'm in them middle of lecture dealing with crashing apps, error messages, or I can't type any text into a new .doc file.

Pages has presenter notes, but then doesn't save/export them?! ***? How is that useful?

Is there ANY other app that has this functionality? How about QuickOffice? Not dropping the $$ for that until I know more about it. I realize this is all still a developing area of iPad functionality but this seemed like such a simple thing to me until I tried it! Is there really no stable way to edit this very basic aspect of Powerpoint presenting?

Did you find a solution to this yet? I need one badly. I have keynote but turning over each slide one at a time to see the notes is tedious. Not to mention I need to be able to see the pictures while I read the notes!!

I also am looking for an app for ipad 3 that will allow me to download class POWERPOINT (NOT PDF) files, open them in the app and TYPE directly onto the slide. I've heard some about eNOtebook but, it has terrible reviews. I'm looking for something that will actually work for this purpose. Does anyone know of an app that will do this? Also, whatever Noterize is, it's not coming up on the app search on my iPad 3.

So it seems I've found something that allows you to view the presenters notes and edit them. This would be Keynote. It allows you to view previous presenters notes and to also add notes in that area. It looks like yellow lined paper. Not ideal because it doesn't allow you to edit that and view the slide at the same time... but it's better than nothing!