Review – Quickoffice for iPhone/iPod Touch

Posted by psp2468 April - 30 - 2009 - Thursday

quickoffice

Have you ever wanted to edit an Excel or WordÂ document but couldn’t because you didn’t have you laptop handy? Well, this is no longer a problem because of Quickoffice’s new iPhone & iPod Touch compatible app called Quickoffice:Â Mobile Office Suite. Here is a review of the app.

This app is quite simply jam packed with features including compatibility with over 20 different file types including .doc, .xls and .ppt files plus you can connect this with either your MobileMe or your iDisk so you can import the files from your computer to iPod Touch/iPhone and vice versa.

When you click on the icon you are welcomed with a home screen where you select where the files are located. As you can see there is firstly the local files (on your iPhone/iPod Touch) but you can also add your MobileMe account and iDisk account. Also on the bottom, it has a status bar showing you if you are connected to a Wi-fi network or not. This is one of the bad points about the app you can only upload files using Wi-fi because Quickoffice believe that 3G is not fast enough to upload files within a comfortable time frame.

If you click on the settings button (the cog) on the top left you are welcomed with this menu.

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As you can see from this menu, one of the good features included in this program is that you can password protect Quickoffice. This is good if you are a business man who has kids who like to play with your iPhone and potential delete some important files.

You can also disable sleep for when you write long documents and need time to think. You can turn on and off the file transfers to save battery if you don’t want to transfer any files. Plus it shows you the amount of space you have used on your iPhone with the documents you create. The standard option is 100mb but this can be changed from a range from ‘no cache’ to 500mb.

The Document Menu:

Here is the documents menu.Firstly I shall tell you what each button on the bottom does.

From left-right:

Create a folder: This button creates folders to help keep all the documents organized.
Move or copy a file: This button lets you move or copy and files to different folders on your iPhone/iPod Touch.
Send as email attachment: This is another BRILLIANT feature of Quickoffice. You can send the any of your documents by an email attachment. You just simply select the files you want to send and it automatically opens the mail app on your iPhone/iPod Touch.
Delete: Speaks for itself.
Create a file: This is where you click to create a new document. It gives you three options, Spreadsheet, Word and text file.

The Wi-fi button on the top right simply brings up a menu which allows you to enable and disable file transfers and authentication.

Spreadsheets:

Here are the features included in the spreadsheet editor (from Quickoffice.com):

Edit & Create MS-EXCEL spreadsheets
Professional-Grade Calculation Engine
Supports advanced Excel features; Implicit Intersection, Array Formulas, Named Ranges
Simply Tap, Hold & Slide your finger to increase/decrease Column Width/Row Height
Extensive formatting; Bold, Italic, Cell Background, Font Color, Accounting, Currency, Decimals, Currency Symbols
Double Tap on a cell and drag your finger diagonally to Select a Range
Easily change Inputs and Recalculate
Confidently edit with Auto-Save & Auto-Restore
Switch easily between Sheets in a Workbook
Insert new Rows/Columns
File Support: .XLS (97-2003 Editing), .XLSX (2007 Viewing)

The spreadsheet editor is a very clean and efficient editor.

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Again I shall explain what each button does on the bottom of the page (from left to right).

Text Editor: This is the menu which allows you to change the font colour, cell background colour and whether or not the text is bold or italic.
Number Format: This is the menu where you can change the number format of the cell such as General, number, currency or time.
Worksheets: Here you can select which worksheet you want to use in the document.
Rows and columns: This menu allows you to insert columns and rows and delete them.
Undo and redo

You navigate the editor using you finger sliding across the touch screen. It is very usable and works great!

Word Document Editor:

Here are the features included in the word editor (from Quickoffice.com):

Edit & Create Microsoft Word files
Intuitively cut/copy/paste text, including to another document
Easy to use, fast, accurate double/triple tap for word/paragraph selection
High-fidelity rendering for optimized mobile viewing
Wrap text at any zoom level eliminates repetitive left/right scrolling
Enhanced magnifier for accurate cursor placement
Extensive text formatting; bold, italics, font sizes, font styles
Simple undo/redo text changes
Confidently edit with auto-save & auto-restore
Quickly edit bulleted/numbered lists
Images scaled to screen for optimized viewing
Open complex documents without performance or stability compromise
File Support: .DOC (97-2003 Editing), .DOCX (2007 Viewing), .TXT

This editor again works great and is easy to use.

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As you can see from the screenshot there is COPY AND PASTE.

I shall now tell you what each button on the bottom of the screen mean (from left to right).

Text Editor: This is the menu which allows you to change the font colour, font type and whether or not the text is bold or italic. You can also highlight text.
Bullet Points: This next button adds bullet points to the document.
Keyboard: This button brings up the keyboard so you can type.
Copy and Paste: As in the screenshot above, this is where you can cut, copy, paste and delete text. This works by double tapping the screen which highlights the tapped word and then you can drag the two ends to select how much of the text you can to select.
Undo and Redo:

You can also zoom in and out just like you would with an image (pinch the screen).

QuickofficeÂ® Files (Remote Access, Email, WiFi & File Management)

I have not tested and will not be able to for a while but here are the features outlined on Quickoffice.com.