# Office Suites for IPad? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 9, 2011, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-suites-for-ipad/581335 "2011-05-09T21:43:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-suites-for-ipad/581335/1 "2011-05-09T21:43:35Z")
I have a keyboard for my iPad. Now I want to use it to write essays, with footnotes and junk. Apple is really trying my patience by not having something readily available that can completely handle and edit MS Office or Open Office files. Does such an App exist? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-suites-for-ipad/581335/2 "2011-05-09T22:19:38Z")
[Pages](http://www.apple.com/ipad/from-the-app-store/pages.html)? > [@](#): > > View and edit Pages ’09, Microsoft Word, and plain text files from Mail, the web, your MobileMe iDisk, a WebDAV service, or your Mac or PC using iTunes File Sharing. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-suites-for-ipad/581335/3 "2011-05-09T23:09:44Z")
[Quickoffice](http://www.quickoffice.com/quickoffice_connect_suite_ipad/) is one such application, although I haven’t used it on my iPad (which I mostly use for playing games). ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-suites-for-ipad/581335/4 "2011-05-09T23:38:40Z")
Documents to Go. I’ve been using them since the Palm days, and it’s just awesome on the iPad. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-suites-for-ipad/581335/5 "2011-05-10T00:32:00Z")
My problem with all of aforementioned, with all thanks for posting though, is that none of them, AFAICT, have support for footnotes/endnotes. That’s a big one for me. I shelled out fifteen bucks for quick office last week and I’m not prepared to buy another word processor until someone can offer assurances that I would have better success with the notes! If this is something I want to use for school, that’s simply not a negotiable point. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-suites-for-ipad/581335/6 "2011-05-10T12:17:56Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > My problem with all of aforementioned, with all thanks for posting though, is that none of them, AFAICT, have support for footnotes/endnotes. That’s a big one for me. I shelled out fifteen bucks for quick office last week and I’m not prepared to buy another word processor until someone can offer assurances that I would have better success with the notes! > > If this is something I want to use for school, that’s simply not a negotiable point. 🙂 I know that Documents to Go supports at least viewing them. I’ve never tried editing or creating them, though. There’s always the option to VNC to your desktop machine, and then you literally have every full-scale application that exists at your fingers. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-suites-for-ipad/581335/7 "2011-05-10T13:14:11Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > I know that Documents to Go supports at least viewing them. I’ve never tried editing or creating them, though. > > There’s always the option to VNC to your desktop machine, and then you literally have every full-scale application that exists at your fingers. I have splashtop, as well as a free VNC client. Does VNC work remotely? I.e., from somewhere other than my home router? I bought pages and got it to work. It lets me view footnotes, it lets me cut, copy, and paste them, but not insert new ones…wtf, Apple? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-suites-for-ipad/581335/8 "2011-05-10T14:13:19Z")
Does Google Docs let you do footnotes? It is free and browser-based. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-suites-for-ipad/581335/9 "2011-05-10T15:06:46Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > Does VNC work remotely? I.e., from somewhere other than my home router? If you set up port forwarding correctly, it does. I tend to do VNC via ssh and do everything through that single port. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-suites-for-ipad/581335/10 "2011-05-10T18:42:20Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Does Google Docs let you do footnotes? It is free and browser-based. It does these ugly blue hyperlink ones, and they don’t look right when you export them. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-suites-for-ipad/581335/11 "2011-05-10T20:28:30Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > I have splashtop, as well as a free VNC client. Does VNC work remotely? I.e., from somewhere other than my home router? > > I bought pages and got it to work. It lets me view footnotes, it lets me cut, copy, and paste them, but not insert new ones…wtf, Apple? :dubious: I found that [Instant Housecall](http://www.instanthousecall.com/) is a little simpler because you don’t have to do any messing with the router. It uses VNC technology. I recently used it to help my dad with a computer problem at church. If he can figure it out… You just sign up, and the service handles the forwarding. It may be slower than a true VNC connection, but it sure is easier, and you don’t have to use port forwarding, putting a perpetual hole in your firewall.