All iPads Are Msoft Word and Excel any good on IPads?

[Marty_Macfly]

Hi All,

As per previous post, we already have Office 365 subscription.

Are Msoft Word and Excel any good on IPads though?


Criteria:

1. Opens word and excel docs ok, if originate from Windows laptops?

2. Formatting ok?

3. Saves ok, and then opens ok on Windows machines?


Be good to know your experiences, before gong through the hassle of hours of adjustments of documents on iPad


Regards
Martin

 

[Magoo1979]

I have a windows Laptop and Ipad Pro for work. I do most of my editing on The pro and print mainly from the laptop (Works setup wont let me print on the iPad yet!). Have not had any issues in saving etc as long as your logged into 365 on both machines. I find using the pro with the Magic Keyboard easy to type and edit with track pad when needed. If you are a shortcut user these change between the PC and iPad. I am still learning the work flow but find most thing work well.

Excel wont run Macros but works well in most other things

Files sync Fast and I print fine from my PC even if created from scratch on the iPad.

So no issue once you get it set up and start using it.

 

[LeeW]

You should look into the difference between Word/Excel for Windows vs macOS, there are quite a few. Depending on what you are doing there may be an impact in that something created in Windows will not function correctly in macOS.

 

[MandiMac]

Hi All,

As per previous post, we already have Office 365 subscription.

Are Msoft Word and Excel any good on IPads though?


Criteria:

1. Opens word and excel docs ok, if originate from Windows laptops?

2. Formatting ok?

3. Saves ok, and then opens ok on Windows machines?


Be good to know your experiences, before gong through the hassle of hours of adjustments of documents on iPad


Regards
Martin

If you have a subscription and an iPad, just try it out. There are differences in terms of formatting and macros, but the apps are free - so nothing's a problem, really.

 

[AutomaticApple]

Hi All,

As per previous post, we already have Office 365 subscription.

Are Msoft Word and Excel any good on IPads though?


Criteria:

1. Opens word and excel docs ok, if originate from Windows laptops?

2. Formatting ok?

3. Saves ok, and then opens ok on Windows machines?


Be good to know your experiences, before gong through the hassle of hours of adjustments of documents on iPad


Regards
Martin

Take a look at this helpful video.

 

[secretk]

In terms of Word I have not experienced any issues but I have done general editing of files created on Windows machine. No issues. As long as they are stored in OneDrive and syncing works on both devices then it is all fine.

In term of Excel for me is rather clunky on an iPad. Even for the most basic Excel file I need at least one or two formulas and I cannot find an easy way to set this up on an iPad. I need the laptop for that. Maybe there is an option that I can see properly. General formatting on Excel can be done on the iPad. And yeah no macros and all those fancy stuff.

 

[sparksd]

Specific differences between implementations on different platforms -

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...latforms-5e00dfba-3d7c-4222-b850-a0527ff7b066

 

[Cosmo M3]

All the Microsoft Office apps on the iPad Pro are LITE version of the Mac equivalent (it’s not that good).

 

[sparksd]

All the Microsoft Office apps on the iPad Pro are LITE version of the Mac equivalent (it’s not that good).

It really comes down to what you need with the apps. With relatively simple DOC and XLS files, they are quite adequate. If you need macros & tables of contents, then you need the full apps on a Mac or PC device. For a lot of users, this is more than enough.

 

[Petrophas]

Cursor support isn't great if you're using a mouse or trackpad.

 

[ian87w]

Watch for font changes.
This is one major issue we are having whenever I collaborated with Mac users. Some fonts are Windows-only, and vice versa. Really annoying.

 

[muzzy996]

Watch for font changes.
This is one major issue we are having whenever I collaborated with Mac users. Some fonts are Windows-only, and vice versa. Really annoying.

Experienced that as well. There's also limitations on custom styles. IMO office on iPad is just good enough to use when I'm remote to be able to open files sent to me in emails but not good enough for me to start documents from scratch. Everyone is different though.

 

[secretk]

Experienced that as well. There's also limitations on custom styles. IMO office on iPad is just good enough to use when I'm remote to be able to open files sent to me in emails but not good enough for me to start documents from scratch. Everyone is different though.

Yep. And in the rare case when I start the files I end up completing them on my computer. For example I use SmartArts a lot for presentations. I do not like to do just text on my slides, I prefer to represent them in some sort of graphic/visual way to bring attention. I cannot do this on an iPad. So what I do? I create draft on the iPad (if I do not have laptop nearby). Basically I add slide for the agenda/content and then create slides for each topic, put on the titles and all of that. Then in comments I put all that I want to say (in words) and once I am on the computer I copy the comments and turn them into Smart Art graphics.

 

[sracer]

Hi All,

As per previous post, we already have Office 365 subscription.

Are Msoft Word and Excel any good on IPads though?


Criteria:

1. Opens word and excel docs ok, if originate from Windows laptops?

2. Formatting ok?

3. Saves ok, and then opens ok on Windows machines?


Be good to know your experiences, before gong through the hassle of hours of adjustments of documents on iPad


Regards
Martin

Q. Are Msoft Word and Excel any good on IPads though?
A. (short answer) No.

Office for iPad fits a vary narrow set of use cases. You can LOAD moderately advanced documents in the iPad and they will look near-identical to Windows-based Office (provided that you use default fonts or have custom fonts installed on the iPad). You will be able to make minor edits to those documents.

You will not be able to CREATE moderate-to-advanced documents on the iPad.

Functionality-wise, MS Office for iPad is no more advanced than Office for Android or other mobile-based productivity suites. When I need to edit my MS Office documents on a mobile device, I use the web version of MS Office as it offers much more functionality.

Having said that, if you limit the complexity of your MS Office documents to the same level of complexity as Google Docs or Apple Pages, then you'll be fine and be able to near-seamlessly interact with those documents on the iPad and desktop.

 

[ejin222]

Having said that, if you limit the complexity of your MS Office documents to the same level of complexity as Google Docs or Apple Pages, then you'll be fine and be able to near-seamlessly interact with those documents on the iPad and desktop.

Agree with this last statement. MS Office, on iPadOS, is equivalent to Google Docs. Really wish Microsoft did more with their iOS/iPadOS software, but now that Apple is moving onto Apple Silicon, we may finally get desktop level apps (hopefully).

 

[Marty_Macfly]

Q. Are Msoft Word and Excel any good on IPads though?
A. (short answer) No.

Office for iPad fits a vary narrow set of use cases. You can LOAD moderately advanced documents in the iPad and they will look near-identical to Windows-based Office (provided that you use default fonts or have custom fonts installed on the iPad). You will be able to make minor edits to those documents.

You will not be able to CREATE moderate-to-advanced documents on the iPad.

Functionality-wise, MS Office for iPad is no more advanced than Office for Android or other mobile-based productivity suites. When I need to edit my MS Office documents on a mobile device, I use the web version of MS Office as it offers much more functionality.

Having said that, if you limit the complexity of your MS Office documents to the same level of complexity as Google Docs or Apple Pages, then you'll be fine and be able to near-seamlessly interact with those documents on the iPad and desktop.

Hi S,

I’ve just re-read this thread.

Hey, you can use a web based version of Excel?!

Cool!

Does it work better specifically on the Ipad, compared to the pretty poor version of the Excel App?

Does sync on One drive work ok on it, or is it a bit flaky, and I could find the original document stripped down when I resave the file?


Hope you can advise