現代化職場:辦公應用提升iPad工作效率

There's a popular myth that Apple's iPad and other tablets are simply media-consumption devices, unsuitable for productivity applications. That's just not so, and this week I tested a variety of office suites for the iPad for mini-reviews of their capabilities. In fact, I wrote and edited this entire column on an iPad using the most popular paid iPad app, the $10 Pages word processor by Apple.

有個流行的說法，蘋果iPad和其他平板電腦只是媒體消費裝置，而不適合用於辦公。事實並非如此，本週我測試了諸多iPad上的辦公元件，初步瞭解了它們的效能。實際上，這篇專欄文章我就是完全在iPad上撰寫和編輯的，用的是蘋果售價10美元（約合人民幣62元）的文書處理應用Pages。

Not every productivity task is optimally done on tablet software, of course. Writing a plain text document like this one isn't the same as creating a large, nuanced spreadsheet. For complex documents, I still recommend using a PC or Mac.

當然，並不是每項工作任務都適合在平板應用軟體上處理。撰寫這樣的純文字文件不同於建立一個龐大繁細的表格。對於複雜的文件，我還是推薦使用PC和Mac。

And then there's the problem with typing on a tablet's virtual keyboard. If you're going to use your iPad for longer documents, I suggest using a Bluetooth keyboard. I used a physical keyboard to write this, though I usually am fine with the on-screen one.

而且在平板電腦的虛擬鍵盤上輸入也是個問題。如果你打算用iPad輸入較長檔案，我建議使用藍芽鍵盤。我是用的實體鍵盤寫得這篇稿子，雖然平時我會用螢幕上的鍵盤。

Despite these caveats, iPads and other tablets are being used every day for productivity tasks once reserved for laptops. Every time you reach for your iPad to read, or tap out, a work-related email, that's productivity. Every time you make or change a business appointment on an iPad calendar, that's productivity. And there are way too many tailored productivity and business apps to list here, including apps for salespeople, contractors and doctors.

儘管有這些注意事項，但我們每天都在用iPad和其他平板電腦處理過去曾經是筆記本承擔的辦公任務。每次你用iPad閱讀或回覆工作郵件時，這就是在辦公。每次你在iPad日程表上新建或更改商業會見時，這就是在辦公。而且平板電腦上還有為數眾多的專用辦公與商業應用，包括為銷售人員、承包商以及醫生打造的應用軟體。

There's a major gap, though: Microsoft Office. The software giant doesn't yet offer a tablet-optimized version. So there are iPad apps that attempt to emulate the features of Office and can import and export files in Microsoft's Office formats. They generally don't offer all of the features of Office and don't always offer perfect fidelity with PC and Mac versions of Office. But I have found they are fine for the basic documents most people create or edit. And all can open and edit Office-type files attached to email, using the iPad's 'Open In...' command. You just touch the attachment icon for a bit longer than usual and a grid of compatible apps to use for editing appears.

不過，微軟(Microsoft)的Office尚未推出針對平板優化的版本，這是個很大的缺憾。因此，有一些iPad應用試圖模仿Office功能，可以以微軟Office格式匯入匯出檔案。這些應用一般不能提供Office的全部功能，也不總是能與PC或Mac版Office完美相容。但我覺得，這些應用可以滿足大多數人建立和編輯基本文件的需求。通過iPad的“以…開啟”指令，它們都可以開啟和編輯郵件附件裡的Office型別檔案。你只需要比平時較長時間地按住附件圖示，就可以看到一系列可以用於編輯的相容應用。

Here are my impressions of some of these apps, including AstralPad, from a three-person startup that launched a few months ago. I tested these by doing two things with each. First, I created an identical word-processing document, with text in various styles and a photo, and then exported it to Microsoft Word on a PC and Mac. Then I imported a 23-page PowerPoint file to see if it looked as it did on a PC and Mac.

以下是我對其中一些應用的感受，其中包括了一家三人創業公司在幾個月前推出的應用AstralPad。我對每個應用都進行了兩項測試。首先，我會建立一個完全一樣的文書處理文件，用不同方式輸入文字並新增照片，隨後匯出到PC和Mac上的微軟Word軟體。然後，我會匯入一個23頁的PPT檔案，看其在iPad的顯示是否與PC及Mac上的一樣。

iWork

iWork應用

Introduced by Apple at the iPad's launch in 2010, the touch-version of the company's office suite is now in its seventh revision. It's the most touch-friendly of the products I tested and the most transparent about cases where it's incompatible with Office. Apple even maintains a Web page disclosing incompatibilities. The suite consists of Pages, the Numbers spreadsheet and the Keynote presentation app, which are sold for $10 each.

2010年，蘋果在iPad上推出了觸控版的iWork，如今這套辦公應用已經是第七版了。這是我所評測過最適合觸控操作的產品，也是在與Office不相容方面做得最透明的產品。蘋果甚至依舊保留著一個網頁顯示不相容之處。這套元件包括Pages、Numbers表格以及Keynote演示應用，每款應用售價都是10美元（約合人民幣62元）。

iWork synchronizes documents as you type them with its cloud-based iCloud service, which can be accessed from any Web browser and can export the files in Office formats. You can email documents in Office format. But unlike many other iPad apps, it lacks built-in access to popular online storage sites like Dropbox and Google Drive.

當你輸入文件的時候，iWork應用會與基於雲端的iCloud服務進行同步，而後可以在任何網頁瀏覽器上訪問，並可以以Office格式匯出檔案。你可以在電子郵件中用Office格式傳送文件。但不同於其他一些iPad應用，iWork沒有內建接入Dropbox和谷歌雲端硬碟(Google Drive)這些熱門雲端儲存服務的功能。

The suite works well offline, as it stores documents locally as well.

這套元件可以把文件儲存在本地，離線執行順暢。

Pages was fastest and easiest at creating my test document, but the document had a misaligned line when I viewed it in Word on a Mac and PC. On the other hand, Keynote on the iPad imported the presentation perfectly.

在建立我的測試文件時，Pages用起來最為迅速便捷，但當我在Mac與PC上用Word檢視文件時，發現有一行沒有對齊。另一方面，Keynote在iPad上完美顯示了匯入的演示文件。

QuickOffice Pro HD

QuickOffice Pro HD應用

This Office substitute has been around a long time on various platforms and is fine for simple documents on the iPad. It costs $20 for all three modules in one app. It stores files locally and integrates with many popular cloud-storage services.

這一Office替代軟體已經在各個平臺上釋出了很久，適用於在iPad上處理簡單文件。其售價20美元（約合人民幣124元），包括了所有三種格式。這款應用可以將檔案儲存在本地，也整合了很多熱門的雲端儲存服務。

However, I couldn't insert the photo into my test document, and the presentation I imported was formatted wrong.

不過，這款應用不能在我的文字文件中嵌入照片，我匯入的演示文件也顯示格式錯誤。

AstralPad

AstralPad應用

The newest competitor is merely a window into an office app running on a server. Since the server app is meant for PCs, it has many more features and in some cases, better fidelity, than apps that live on the iPad. It's free for now, but will soon cost a few dollars a month for more than a limited number of documents.

這個最新的同類應用只是一個視窗，由此進入在伺服器上的辦公應用。由於伺服器應用是為PC設計的，因此包含了更多的功能；某些情況下，這款應用比iPad上的同類產品都更完善。AstralPad目前是免費的，但很快就要設定每月文件數量限額，超過的話每月要收費。

However, the cloud-based program Astral uses isn't even an actual version of Office, but an open-source clone. And because it's meant for a mouse, I found it difficult to manipulate, even though Astral has added some touch controls and a virtual mouse.

不過，Astral所用的基於雲端的軟體並不是實際版的Office，而是一個開源的克隆版。而且這是為滑鼠操作設計的，即便Astral加了一些觸控和虛擬滑鼠，我還是覺得有點難以操作。

In addition, it converts files in the current Office document formats into older formats before you can work with the files.

此外，這款軟體可以在進行檔案處理前，將檔案從目前的Office文字格式轉化為此前較老版本的格式。

AstralPad has some nice features. It allows you to work with multiple documents simultaneously and to cut and paste between them. And it has video and audio calling for collaboration. It works with cloud-based services and local storage. But it can't work offline.

AstralPad有一些不錯的功能。它可以同時處理多個文件，可進行相互間剪貼複製。而且這款應用還有視訊與音訊通話的協作功能，可以本地儲存，也相容雲端服務。但AstralPad不能離線使用。

It created my test file fine after the company fixed a bug that at first wouldn't allow me to import a photo. But it didn't display the presentation file correctly, with overlapping text and pictures.

開始使用時，這款應用不允許我匯入照片，他們解決了這個問題後，我用AstralPad建立了測試檔案。不過，它不能正確顯示演示檔案，文字與圖片會重合。

I found AstralPad to be a work in progress.

我覺得AsrtalPad還是個半成品。

CloudOn

CloudOn 應用

Like AstralPad, this is just a window into a server and won't work offline. But it uses a real, remote copy of Microsoft Office and is free. It was able to create my test document fine and to display my test presentation properly. It also integrates with cloud-based storage. But while it was easier to use than AstralPad, I still found it clumsy to use its PC software on a touch tablet.

和AstralPad一樣，這也只是個連線伺服器的視窗，不能離線使用。但其使用了真正的微軟Office遠端版本，而且是免費的。CloudOn很好地建立了我的測試檔案，也正確顯示了我用來測試的演示文件。它也整合了雲端儲存服務。不過，雖然這款應用比AstraPad操作簡便，我仍然覺得在觸控式螢幕的平板電腦上使用PC軟體有點笨拙。

Bottom line: None of these iPad office suites is perfect, but you can get basic work done on them that will translate to a computer with little or no effort.

結論：這些iPad辦公元件都不完美，但你可以在上面完成基本工作，而後把它們便捷地轉到電腦上。