Office

MS Office

I have used MS Office for many years, and it is now almost universally used. I subscribe to Office 365 on Windows, but still use an earlier version on Mac.

I prefer to create and update Office docs (mainly intended for printing) on my Windows or Mac desktop, and share them on MS OneDrive.

Web Apps

Microsoft and Google include online apps on their cloud drives, which are useful to read or print shared documents without downloading them.

Both try to persuade you to sign in or up when you open a link, which can be off-putting.

I prefer to use Google Drive for documents (mainly intended for web viewing), especially if I update them frequently from other websites.

iPads and Tablets

Tablets are great for viewing docs on the move, and for limited text entry. I especially like their press and hold keys features for foreign accents and popular key variations.

MS Word is now available free for Android, Mac and Windows phones and tablets, with a useful Reading Mode. This makes the text a comfortable size in portrait mode, and shows relevant footnotes at the bottom of each screen of a tablet, but not on an Android phone. However it’s a bit slow, and some tables shrink in Read Mode. Double click on table or picture to zoom in on it (works in Android tablet).

Dropbox

Dropbox has a preview mode, plus a link to MS Word. Dropbox was my preferred cloud storage, but they make it difficult to use without an account. Theoretically, you do not need a Dropbox account to access it, but I have experienced problems with downloaded files (without an account). If you decide to sign up (for free), we both get a bit of free extra cloud storage if you use this link (on top of the basic 2 GB).

I have decided to restrict my Dropbox use to sharing between my various devices, and use OneDrive or GoogleDrive to share files with others.

Apple iOS Pages

Now shows Footnotes, but cannot differentiate between Footnotes and Endnotes. Also no Read mode, and default A4 page does not quite fit on screen.

Accents

Adding accents has always been a bit of a challenge, particularly in Windows. However recent desktop operating systems have started copying the excellent feature found on most mobiles, where you can press and hold a key to select the desired accented letter. Now I tend to use the shortcuts I know, and use this feature for unfamiliar ones. [See Accents.docx]