4 iOS Office Apps for Creating and Sharing Documents

Apple offers free iWork package on all devices like iPhone, iPad and Mac. This package contains Pages for documents, Keynote for presentations and Numbers for workbook sheets. These apps work in Apple way and makes it difficult to integrate with the mostly used Microsoft Office documents. It does not make sense to create Pages document on iPhone then losing the fonts and styles when converting into Word document on Windows based PC. Also, if you are habituated with Microsoft documents and work collaboratively with PC then Apple’s iWork package will not be of much use to your need.

On other hand, Microsoft also offers Office 365 package for iOS but it needs a subscription for creating and editing documents. The minimum personal subscription will cost you $69.99 per year or $6.99 per month. Also you need separate apps or Word, PowerPoint and Excel for doing your work.

4 iOS Office Apps

By looking at both Apple’s iWork and Microsoft’s Office 365 packages, it is evident that most users might need an alternative option for handling all documents in a single app with more sharing options. Here are 4 iOS Office apps we found more helpful for creating and editing documents.

1. WPS Office

WPS Office is a complete office suite for creating and editing text, spreadsheet and presentations. In addition you can scan, do file transfer, view presentation synchronously on multiple devices and connect to projector. This is the only free app suite that does not show ads and allows PDF file processing. You can easily convert documents into PDF format and annotate.

The documents can be shared within the app or shared to Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive and Box.

2. Polaris Office – Docs, PDF Reader & Editor

Polaris Office is a free iPhone and iPad app that allows you to process Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents in a single app. You can also view PDF documents and create plain text documents with this app.

This app supports all popular Office document extensions and also offers 20+ free templates for creating your documents. By default the documents are saved to Polaris cloud and you can also share to iCloud and other cloud storages. The free app shows annoying ads on every few clicks and you can upgrade for $2.99 to remove the ads.

The free app by removing ads should be sufficient for most of your needs. If you need more features like export to PDF then the upgrade options are available starting from $3.99.

3. OfficeSuite – Office documents and PDF editor

OfficeSuite is exactly combination of Documents and Polaris Office apps offering processing of Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. You can save documents to OfficeSuite drive and iCloud. Also Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and Box options are available along with WiFi file transfer to local computer.

The free version will show ads which can be removed by upgrading to $2.99 per month. The upgraded version will also offer many other additional features like PDF annotation, document protection, save and edit PDF files.

4. Documents Free (Mobile Office Suite)

Documents is a free mobile Office suite that allows you to create text documents and spreadsheets on your iPhone and iPad. You can also scan documents, take photos and have folder management functions within the same app.

At this moment, the app does not handle presentation slides and suitable for simple text editing. The documents and spreadsheets created can be shared over email, Dropbox, Google Docs, OneDrive and Box. You can also save to your PC or Mac using Wi-Fi or USB sharing options.

The free version shows advertisements and you can upgrade to $2.99 to remove the ads.

Final Thoughts

Out of the four apps we have checked, WPS Office is undoubtedly the free app that is sufficient for all your need. All other apps shows ads and offer premium version for monthly or fixed subscription. WPS Office does not show annoying ads and upgrade options, which makes the app most popular for document processing. Also this is the only app allows PDF conversion and annotation for free.

On other hand, if you are looking for more templates and editing features then try OfficeSuite or Polaris Office apps. The Documents app is the lightest app with only 37 MB size. So if you have limited space and don’t need presentations then try Documents free or pro versions.