Improved ability to create, edit work documents

Two different companies have expanded their offerings for business, enterprise and corporate users of the iPad that wish to work more with Microsoft Office documents, just be more productive and efficient in their planning and presentations. Byte² has announce version 4.0 of their MS Office integration program, Office² HD, which adds PowerPoint functionality to their office suite -- while longtime Mac developers The Omni Group continue to move towards fulfilling their promise of reproducing all their apps in iPad form with both OmniOutliner and OmniFocus for iPad.

Office² HD ($8) allows users to open, view, create and edit Microsoft Office documents on the iPad, including Word (.doc and .docx), Excel (.xls) and now PowerPoint (.ppt) and PDF files. The apps also features support for Google Docs, Dropbox, MobileMe's iDisk, myDisk.se, Box.net or any WebDAV server, as well as transfer through iTunes or by mounting the program like a USB storage drive -- allowing users to easily move documents from one machine to another, even while on the go.

The program supports most of the features found in Microsoft's Office suite, meaning users can not just view complex documents, but create such files. The word processor has support for tables, inserting images, in-document text searches, spell check and a full range of character and paragraph formatting options.

The spreadsheet module can handle multiple spreadsheets with unlimited rows and columns, does cell formatting and cell types, formula composing and 146 other functions. The slideshow module is limited to .ppt (not .pptx) files, but can insert common shapes, inherits the text and paragraph formatting controls from the word processing module, and present slide shows with a simulated laser pointer and output the slideshow to an external monitor. Wireless printing and Save to PDF options are also supported.

The Omni Group have now added both OmniOutliner ($20) and OmniFocus ($40) as iPad-specific apps. OmniOutliner gives users the ability to enter, manage and recall information in a variety of ways, from to-do lists, agendas and expense management to note-taking, event planning or just free-form brainstorming.

The app features rich text styling, outline structuring, multi-column formatting, smart checkboxes, customizable pop-up lists, pasted image support, compatibility with the desktop version of OmniOutliner, OPML support and document sharing with any WebDAV-based serviced (such as those listed for Office² HD) and exporting in HTML, plain text or OMPL format.

OmniFocus, the company's in-depth task-management program, has been available for the iPad for a while, but has just been updated to v1.3, which features Forecast Mode (which integrates calendar events into a timeline, which now can extend throughout the week), full-screen note editing, hardware screen mirroring (when available) and numerous bug fixes and improvements.

Among the changes: search results, projects being assigned a Context or Action and projects within the review sidebar are now presented in Library order; Smart Match terms are underlined in the search results; the application's "badge" now correctly counts overdue, due soon and flagged items; any sync errors no longer pop-up an alarm and instead badge the sync icon; untitled items are now correctly presented in various lists, and general stability and performance fixes have been made.

When in hardware screen mirroring, OmniFocus now shows the gestures a user makes -- taps, pinches, swipes and so on -- so that viewers can follow along. Also, the commands Paste and New Action have now been added to the contextual menu for the Inbox header. The View menu can now show a user's items with a start date, and rescheduling projects and actions has been made easier.

All three applications are now available for download from the iTunes App Store.

Office² HD

















OmniOutliner














OmniFocus

by MacNN Staff