I've tried both Docs2Go and OfficeHD, but for some reason my Excel and (especially!) Word files look fairly messed up and improperly formatted when I open them using these programs, and it gets even worse if I try to make changes and save! Font sizes go from big to small or vice versa, centered text ends up on the side, some images disappear, paragraphs get jumbled together, etc. Total nightmare. What do I do?

P.S. If it matters, I'm still on 3.2.2.

I have almost all of the so-called Office equivalents, and I can tell you that none of them are "ready for primetime". All have issues with recreating the document formatting etc. The Excel apps are stunted even as to what formulae are included.

My take on it at this point is that you can use these iPad apps for content creation, but not final preparation. They all have a long way to go to give the kind of interoperability that we all want and require from a portable device in this day and age. In many ways, the Pocket PC software is still more mature (E.g. SpreadCE is still the most fully featured Excel clone for a portable device, far better than anything yet on the iPhone/iPad platform.)

Cheers,

****, that's extremely disappointing. So what do I do if I need to make some quick changes to an excel or word doc? Can I maybe use remote desktop or something?

Yup, but not the iPad.

Get an MS Office Live account. You'll need to host your documents on their SkyDrive / cloud storage. When I set mine up last summer I got 25gb storage free. There is an "edit in browser" function that works a little slow but is better than nothing. If you just need quick access / view a document then IMHO nothing beats the DropBox / GoodReader combo. GoodReader can also access iDisk or SkyDrive.

Until MS releases their own apps it's going to be hit or miss. They have already released OneNote so maybe?

What iPad app is the best for remote desktop?

Personally, I love iTeleport. It's a VNC client that works perfectly with MAC or PC's running any number of the VNC servers.

Originally Posted by CorporationOffAnIpad

****, that's extremely disappointing. So what do I do if I need to make some quick changes to an excel or word doc? Can I maybe use remote desktop or something?

for quick changes on excel and word docs on my mobile device i use Office2plus. it's pretty good, and easily sync-able with your mac/pc via wifi.