Thread: Office

We're can I find an office program for my iPad

Are you looking to be able to read word, excel, powerpoint slides? Outlook? Notes? Access?

I did not find it overly hard to find apps to do basic word processing and spreadsheet, being able to read and write documents compatilbe with word and excel. The build-in mail app seems like a decent app for email.

But, if you are looking for a microsoft product, I think you are correct...none exists....for now.

There is no MS Office app for the iPad at this time. There are several apps and services with various degrees of compatibly.

Apple's iWorks apps: Numbers, Pages, and Keynote. Great for document creation. Tolerable import/export with Office, provided you don't need to keep working on the same document in both environments. Move it once, leave it.

Other popular apps: QuickOffice, Office HD, Documents to Go, Polaris Office. Compatibility and features vary. In general they are more compatible than the iWorks apps, if you need to keep moving documents back and forth; but they are not as powerful for actual document creation.

Remote apps: OnLive, CloudOn. These provide access to MS Office on remote servers. The compatibly is near 100%, but you need a good internet connection and the UI is a compromise between touch and desktop. Documents are stored and transferred via a DropBox or Box account.

Google Docs/Drive: Fine if you stay in the Google Doc format, but the Google Drive app won't let you convert in the app. You have to go to the website interface, which works poorly in Safari. It's got some interesting tools though, like web forms that will automatically populate a spreadsheet.

There are more options, but those are the ones I'm familiar with, either directly or by hearsay.

Office2 HD also does a fair job with MS Office documents.

On my PC i have MS Office installed. I use SkyDrive to save my documents. A few days ago I detected CloudOn to edit and change the files. It works for me.

Been using Documents to Go for a while on my iOS devices. It's a good program.

Is an MS office app likely to be released this year?

Originally Posted by davidking1956

Is an MS office app likely to be released this year?

We don't know. When asked in a recent interview, Ballmer avoided discussing the future of Office compatibility with the iPad .

I think it depends on the Surface.


If that proves unsuccessful we may see Office on the iPad.

Originally Posted by KevinJS

I think it depends on the Surface.


If that proves unsuccessful we may see Office on the iPad.

The Surface's hardware and Windows 8 need to stand on their own merits.

If Microsoft is not careful they'll sink Office with their tablets. When people are forced to make a decision on what platform to use, they will be confronted with whether they actually need Office, and many are going to discover that they don't. The only time you really need Office is if you need to be %100 compatible with Office.

Ten years ago most text was destined for paper, and needed to be editable by others. Word is still the one of the very best tools for complex documents destined for print. But, these days most text is destined to stay in electronic format; and most of those formats don't care what apps created them. The complex organizing and indexing features of Word are irrelevant on the computer and internet, where layout is most often flexible, and finding stuff is more efficiently done with direct searches.

Office still has a place, and it still has relevant tools and services, such as those for collaboration; but it's a much smaller place than it used to be and it's no longer the only practical choice to providef those tools and service.