If you don’t like using Numbers you might want to give it a try to Google Spreadsheets which as some of you may know would have to be the spreadsheet part of Google Docs. This is capable of importing & exporting Excel files but there is a loss of formatting as well as some features when you make the transfer. We should mention that by default, the spreadsheets are opened in list view so although you can add rows, modify values as well as change sort order, you cannot reorder or add columns, edit styles and formulas, or include graphical elements.
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Once you tap on the bottom of the screen where it is the Go To Spreadsheet View link, Google Spreadsheets is going to provide you with the version of the file you would see while using the browser on your Mac, but due to the reason that the UI has been designed in order to be utilized with a mouse, on the tablet it will be quite difficult to resize rows and columns, select a range of cells or perform various other tasks that require dragging.
There is one thing that you can do as if you bypass Safari you can open Google’s Spreadsheets straight from several native applications designed for the iPad, such as Office2 HD, Sheet2 HD, Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite, along with Documents To Go. Speaking of Sheet2 HD and Office2 HD, the first one costs $6 while the latter is $8. Both of them offer capabilities for editing spreadsheets, and with Office2 HD you’re able to modify PowerPoint and Excel files as well. Both of these applications are offering a large number of the features that you would find on Excel for Mac but you might want to avoid them if you use a lot of complex charts in your spreadsheets as this is where both apps fail to deliver. Documents To Go along with Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite are able to open, edit and save a spreadsheet without having to strip down any type of formatting or data, despite the fact that these apps can’t display all the existing information. What this means is that unlike Numbers, the spreadsheets can be transferred from the iPad to a Mac and backwards without any loss of content. This is an ideal feature to have if you are using spreadsheets on various platforms. The Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite costs $10 and we like it due to the reason that it is quite finger-friendly since it has a big default font size and it is very easy to manage a range of cells. Documents To Go is also $10 but this one makes use of a smaller default font but on the other hand it has a better layout and it fits more info on the iPad’s screen. Both of these applications are very competent spreadsheet editors so keep them in mind if you’re looking for an application of this type. There’s also Mariner Calc for iPad, priced at $6.
This one delivers a wide array of basic spreadsheet functions and it can read & write Excel files, but only .xls ones. We have to warn you that it doesn’t support forms and charts, while the transferring process to and from a computer is done with the help of a built-in web server.