Reports in June put the number of iPad specific applications in the App Store north of 10,000. No small number of them feature ways of capturing and manipulating text. But for many lawyers, Microsoft Word compatibility is the gold standard, as it is nearly ubiquitous in law firms. While my personal iPad workflow relies primarily on plain text, the numerous comments on this blog and e-mails to me suggest that most attorneys want Word compatible files from start to finish. So, this post sets out to determine which of the Microsoft Word compatible word processors for the iPad handles the import and export process the best. I’m not tackling other features here – just basic Word compatibility.
The criterion for inclusion in my test is the ability of an app to (i) import Microsoft Word files, (ii) edit those files and (iii) export Microsoft Word compatible files. By my tally, there are currently four major word processing applications for the iPad that feature this level of Microsoft Word compatibility. Those apps (and their developers) are:
- Pages – $9.99 (Apple)
- Office 2 HD – $7.99 (Byte 2) (Tablet Legal review)
- Documents to Go Premium – $14.99 (DataViz)
- QuickOffice Connect Mobile Suite for iPad – $9.99 (QuickOffice, Inc.)
All of these apps are iPad native versions, though they have been on the iPhone for some time.
My test was pretty simple. I started with a blank document in Microsoft Word. I added some lorum ipsum and applied simple text formatting. Clicking the thumbnail on the right will take you to an image of the original word file. 
As you can see, it contains the following basic text formatting:
- normal text, ragged right justification
- normal text, full justification
- bullet list
- numbered list
- bold, underline and italics
- tracked changes (deleted text, added text, comment balloon)
- table (with left, right and center justified text)
A few comments about how I came up with this list. First, while this is but a small sampling of the formatting available in Microsoft Word, I think it is reasonable to conclude that these are the most frequently used formats. Second, I wanted to focus on formatting that I thought a lawyer would use most commonly. For this reason, features like image inserts were not tested. While other formatting is used in pleadings and business agreements, the above formatting is probably all that is necessary for typical legal correspondence and basic drafting. I plan to do a similar post in the future focused specifically on pleading formatting (line numbering, line spacing, footnotes, captions) and business agreement formatting (automatic section numbering, numbering formats, section cross references, page breaks).
To test the apps, I imported my original Microsoft Word 2003 file into each iPad application. Once in the application, I added some text to the document in various locations. I then exported the document from the iPad application in Microsoft Word format. These exports were then opened in Microsoft Word 2003 on my desktop from where I created a PDF. Each of the resulting PDF files is attached at the bottom of this post.
In my test, Documents to Go Premium and QuickOffice Connect Mobile Suite for iPad finished in a dead heat. Both preserved the formatting of the original Word document the best. Most notably, while both DTG and QuickOffice do not display tracked changes on the iPad (the document is displayed as though the changes are “accepted”), the tracked changes formatting was preserved when the file was exported out of these iPad apps and viewed again in a desktop version of Word. This is both important and promising. It is important in that it is good to know that tracked changes formatting is not lost while using these apps (even though it can’t be viewed). It is promising in that it suggests that perhaps this is something that can be addressed in an update of the app since the track change data appears to be preserved in the file on the iPad.
Office 2 finished next. The main failing here was with the tracked changes. In the final export from Office 2, the text marked as deleted was reinstated, the added text was inserted and the comment bubble was deleted (though the text from the comment bubble was oddly preserved in the last line of the document)..
Pages finished last. It failed in the same manner as Office 2 with respect to tracked changes except the deleted text was in fact deleted rather than preserved. It went on to muck with the formatting of the table and the formatting of the text I added to the table was inconsistent with the rest of the document.
For straight Word compatibility, Documents to Go and QuickOffice are equals as far as this test goes. Realize that if you have no need for tracked changes, then any of these applications will do a fine job of allowing you to view, edit and send along Microsoft Word compatible documents. Note that these applications all have extensive feature sets, different price points and other strengths and weaknesses that may make a different application better for your situation.
What does your word processing workflow entail? Which of these apps are you using as part of your workflow? Others I haven’t mentioned?
PDF Files
Original Doc
DTG Export
QuickOffice Export
Office 2 Export
Pages Export
Excellent review. Thanks for taking the time to do this. Used pages for a legal pleading it mucked it up. Was wondering in particular about footnotes. Do all of these preserve the footnotes?
Thanks again!
I haven’t tested footnoting and endnoting extensively. I will do that and report soon.
Nice review. I think I’ll go for QuickOffice.
Thanks!
Just the information I was looking for. Thanks!
Changes don’t show as changes in the revised document on the iPad, but the free Documents To Go version on my Blackberry 9700 shows the changes in RED. That is completely unacceptable. Come on DataViz. The iPad, especially with a BT keyboard, is a much more user friendly environment for editing documents, but I have to pull out my Blackberry to see how the document was changed.
I like my iPad, and I use it all the time, but it is this kind of thing that makes me glad I’ve not given up on Blackberry just yet.
I am interested in the footnote/endnote capability too. Thanks for the great post
Dear Josh,
thumbs up for this great post.
I’m an italian lawyer, still amazed at how all those WPs don’t allow reading a mark-up document or creating one.
i look forward to the next app actually capable of redline reading and editing (a must-have requirement for lawyers) and would be real glad if you could keep us posted on any news in such respect.
regards,
Marco
Great job on the article, Josh!
I’m a lawyer from the Philippines planning to buy an iPad soon and your article gave me the information I needed. I had serious misgivings about Pages and your article confirmed it. Just like Marco, I look forward to an app capable of tracking changes. Thanks again for doing your experiment and sharing with us.
Is there a way to print the file to a PDF with the tracked changes information? Tat would get us about 85 percent of the way there Can we print to a PDF on the iPad or do we have to wait until iOS 4 comes?
Hey Daniel
I actually have a post coming to touch on this very subject. Stay tuned!
Josh
Hey Josh,
Currently I am struggling with the same comparisons you seem to have done already. However I cannot find your promised article on numbered lists, especially hierarchical outlines. I cannot for the life of me get Quickoffice create numbered lists at all which makes it next to useless. Do you plan to still make that Part III of your comparison?
Thanks,
Alex
Part III of those comparisons is still in development. I know it has been a while. It is coming though!
I find it interesting how limited the iPad word processors are and the fact that Docs to Go does not play well with dropbox. It really limits the use of the iPad for work.
About 5 years ago, I had an HP Ipaq. I bought a word processor from SoftMaker that had track changes and other MS word features. Why are developers so far behind on the iPad?
Gary
Josh-
Great article and great blog. I’m researching all of the apps to add to my iPad. Your reviews have been a great help! I look forward to reading more.
-Joe
Josh,
Do you know if any apps were updated to allow for track changes to be shown on the iPad screen? Is there an app that provides an iPad user with a full functioning experience that you could get with Word on a laptop? Thanks.
I sure haven’t seen any. I’ll be sure to note here if I see any.
I marked up a word document and viewed it in DocsToGo premium on my IPad today. I was able to see all the track changes. I had highlights in different colors, striked out deletions, added text and comments. They all looked normal. Comments are notated as such, [9]. Tapping on the [9] brings up the comments. Everything was there and easy to follow all my changes. What I’m looking for now is a way to create track changes from an original document on the iPad. Viewing thenchanges made on the PC is not a problem.
Hey Chris. I’m not able to duplicate but still trying!
Can any program display tracked changes yet? Major dissapointment.
Dave, none that I know of, but see Chris’ comment below of success he has had with DTG. I can’t duplicate his success on my rig, unfortunately.
Any updates on trying to reproduce Chris’ find? Does Docs2Go support Track Changes?
Not in my tests. I have an e-mail in to Chris asking but haven’t heard back.
I downloaded Documents 2 Go -premium- on my Ipad, and tested it with a Word2007 .docx file with tracking changes, including strikeouts, insertions, and comments. It worked as Chris described — I was able to see strikeouts and inserts as red text, and comments as a highlighted yellow box. Promising… Don’t know if the “regular” version supports the editing, though, I wondered if that was the difference since i know that Chris mentioned that he was using premium.
Hey, we may be on to something. I have only been able to test with Word 2003 (but using DTG Premium). By process of elimination, that tells me the .docx files may have the special mojo. If this is true, we have a great way to view tracked changes but no way to interact with them (accept/reject) or create them. I’ll try to get my hands on some .docx files so I can post a confirmatory report.
Hello everybody. This discussion seems to have completely missed out 2 very important aspects of office automation: Information in Tables and Email File Attachments.
I have the following 2 queries in these regards:
1) Reg Tables: Do any of the word processing apps for the iPad allow one to insert entirely new tables into the imported MS Word document, allow one to edit an existing table, copy/cut & paste tables and/or copy a set of cells from an imported/newly created MS Excel file into the MS Word document?
2) Email Attachments: Is there any way that one can either reply to an email from within the Mail app and attaching one or more than one file attachments; and/or is there any other app that allows one to select one or more than one files from it’s file repository/library/manager, copy them and paste them directly into the email that is being composed using the Mail app? (I’m looking for a way that has no limitations on the file types that can be attached to the email that is being composed.)
Any answers/solutions?
Hi, Ajit
Great question. Answers.
1. In my quick test, both DTG and QO supported tables to a minor degree. I could create a simple table in a spreadsheet app and then copy/paste it into a word document where it retained basic formatting. But once in the word document, there were no tools to manipulate the table (e.g., resize columns, insert rows, etc).
2. You touch on something that lots of new iPad users have trouble with initially. At our desktops, the typical workflow is to go to the mail client, type and email, and then attach whatever files we need. On the iPad, it is the opposite – select the files and then initiate an email from the file management app. Confusing to be sure. But what you are describing can be done. All of the major file management apps like GoodReader or ReaddleDocs support all different file types. These file management apps also allow you to select multiple different files and then ZIP them into a compressed folder for emailing.
Thanks for the comment!
Sorry to say that I do not agree with your opinions on either of the topics. Here goes.
Regarding Inserting Tables into Documents on the iPad using Documents to Go:
You cannot copy paste the cells in the spreadsheet application in Documents to Go on the iPad and paste them into the word file in Documents to Go on the iPad so that a table is inserted/created. Only the data in the cells get pasted in place with a space as a separater. We can hope to have a new release/update to the curnt version that addresses these serious issues that really affect usability and worthiness.
Regarding Email Attachments on theniPad:
While I understand what you are saying, regarding the intended approach to use of the preinstalled iPad Mail application, I do do agree that this is the correct/sufficient approach to emailing attachments. This approach and the Mail application is clearly deficient. What you have suggested is not even a workaround to problem and is therefore unacceptable.
The app really needs to provide a way to attach (one and more than one) attachments to an email. This is particularly important when one is replying to an email.
In most likelihood it is either a technical limitation to the application architecture, lack of thought or simply a headstrong attitude of the designers at Apple. There is no 4th possibility to this.