Spent the best part of Sunday afternoon backing up and restoring a friends computer after they had managed to corrupt the Vista install (for the third time). The machine is a HP 17″ laptop with TV tuner built in. A nice piece of hardware, shame about the OS. When questioning what applications they wanted reinstalled it turned out they generally only used the browser and occasionally Word.
I offered the advice that they really don’t need such a machine and suggested that next time they look at getting an iPad which would definitely suit their limited IT skills in regards to maintenance. I let them have a go with my iPad 2 and within a few minutes there was another IOS convert in the world. Their only question was the compatibility with Word docs as they would occasionally need to review or edit work documents at home.
To verify the usefulness of the iPad as a desktop replacement I created an Excel spreadsheet, Word Document and Powerpoint Presentation. The idea being to see how well they kept their format and features in IOS and the effect on the documents when exporting back to the MS Office applications.
- Excel spreadsheet includes a graphic file, command buttons linked to VBA macros and IF , Vlookup, IsError, Count and Sum statements. I also included a linked chart.
- Word document includes a watermark, graphic files and a table with shading.
- Powerpoint presentation is a simple two page file with graphic and text transitions.
Below are images of the files. They links above are to the original documents if you would like to test them yourself.
Being a IOS app junkie I own the iWorks Suite (Numbers, Keynote & Pages), Documents To Go Premium and Quickoffice Pro HD. I opened the documents in each of the apps and made some changes to the spreadsheet and document file and reviewed the presentation.
I then emailed the files back to my computer and opened them up in Microsoft Office to see what effect the IOS apps had on the files formatting.
Here are the results;
iWorks
The spreadsheet displayed fairly accurately with only the addition of some grid lines. All formulas worked fine. The Command buttons did not display but this was expected as VBA is not supported under IOS. The chart’s style was changed but updated correctly.
The presentation displayed and worked as per the original Powepoint, including the transitions.
The Word document was close to perfect with the exception being the cutting off of the watermark.
All files has fonts replaced due to the limitations in the iWorks app.
The major issue when the files were emailed back to my iMac was that Numbers had stripped out the VBA code entirely. It also kept the cell lines that were present on the iPad and centering of text was removed. The worksheet had been renamed.
The presentation was basically unchanged from the original Powerpoint.
The word document still had the cutoff watermark.
Quickoffice Pro HD
The spreadsheet had all of the grid lines displayed. Line height was reduced to a common size causing the title to be displayed incorrectly. The VBA buttons did not display. The chart and the graphic were missing in action. All of the formulas worked fine.
The presentation reverted to a static display of the slides, no animation were shown.
The document lost the watermark and graphics. The return address was aligned to the left rather than the right. The table did not display all of the borders.
On opening the spreadsheet on the iMac it looked close to the original Excel file apart from some formatting differences with the chart. The VBA buttons and macros were intact and worked fine.
The presentation displayed and played as per the original.
The document looked pretty much identical to the original.
Documents To Go Premium
The gridlines were displayed on the spreadsheet. The graphic and chart were not diplayed. The VBA buttons were missing. All formulas worked.
The presentation only displayed static pages, no animations. The pages were not fully displayed.
Document text lost some alignment. No watermark or graphics were displayed. Cell shading was lost.
Back to the iMac and the spreadsheet displayed close to the original file, including the chart formating. VBA macros worked fine.
The presentation was pretty much identical to the original.
The document had no obvious issues.
Conclusion
On the iPad my preference is to use Apple’s iWorks suite. They are typical for Apple, being well designed and elegant to use. Unfortunately if you are required to share Microsoft Office files the changes made to Excel and Word files will likely cause issues. For Powerpoint users though Keynotes is mandatory given its ability to play presentations, both on-screen and external monitors.
Of the two other apps reviewed my user preference is for Quickoffice Pro HD but, presumably due to their long history in offering PDA office suites, it is Dataviz’s Documents To Go Premium that will cause minimal issues when sharing office documents with Microsoft Office suite users.
