Best Excel tools for the iPad

“What would you want to bother with Excel on an iPad? That’s not what it’s for,” might be a common response, but since Richard Middleton posed the question last month we feel it’s ExcelZone’s duty to catalogue the spreadsheet possibilities for Apple’s tablet computer.

After all, this is a community of accountants, and what else would you want to use a computer for?

The initial impracticalities of using spreadsheets were addressed by the two Nigels - Hughes and Harris - who highlighted the touch interface’s shortcomings when it comes to manipulating numbers and cells on screen.

“Stabbing at the screen with your fingers is not really the best recipe for spreadsheet work,” commented Nigel Hughes. “The iPad is a fantastic tool - it’s great for taking notes, displaying all kinds of documents and media and accessing the internet . But it's not a fully functioning laptop.”

Harris agreed: “My namesake hits the nail on the head. Without a keyboard and mouse a lot of spreadsheet operations are pretty tricky on the iPad… For 99% of the time I just use the iPad as a viewer and find it works OK.”

Jon Bryce countered that you can get Bluetooth wireless keyboards for the iPad from both Apple and Logitech, which could solve some of the interface issues.