Open Office counterpart for iOS?

[Padcatt]

I am writing a book and will use 2 Mac and an iPad pro (at various times) and would like to use software that all 3 support.

I'm shying away from Pages. I'm using LibreOffice on the Macs, but there seems to be no iPad OS counterpart for LibreOffice.

Can anyone suggest an app for iPad which will readily save and open .odt files?

Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

 

[twerppoet]

I searched through the official LibraOffice’s community support, and found mention of Collabora Office. It has decent reviews and has been updated recently. Since it’s free, you might as well take a look.

Several years ago I used several of the OpenOffice apps and it’s forks. Eventually I broke down and got a personal Office 365 account. I don’t need Microsoft Office compatibility often, but when I do it is almost always because I’m working with someone else’s files. I don’t like wondering what random changes my edits might introduce.

When I do my own stuff I depend on simpler text editors and note apps most of the time. I use Pages when I need formatted output. I don’t need much of the second, and it’s mostly personal; so no reason to do heavy lifting with Office.

Depending on what kind of book you are writing, Office of any flavor might be overkill. A good text editor and txt or rtf files can be moved to almost any platform. After all, the book is text, not formatting. Lots of footnotes, endnotes, table of content generation, etc.? Well then I guess you’re stuck with some flavor of Office. While Pages will do some of this, it doesn’t have nearly the options and power of Office.

Good luck on your book.

 

[Padcatt]

A good text editor and txt or rtf files can be moved to almost any platform.

indeed, and I’d be happy with text edit or similar but it doesn’t seem like ipad/ios has such an app, unless it’s Notes.

the only “formatting” I’d like is to control space after to avoid hitting two returns after a paragraph, which ive set up easily in libreoffice. I’m then free to type, knowing I’ll have a file with double spacing and space between paragraphs—perfect for editing.

thank you!

 

[twerppoet]

I’m not trying to talk you out of the of the software you want. I’m looking forward to hearing if Collabora Office (or some other solution) fits your needs.

You don’t need to read any further.

However, there are tons of great text editor app for the iPad. Despite not needing heavy writing tools, I’ve researched and used a few of them; just because I like the tools. Currently on my iPad I have:

Editorial
1Writer
Byword
Textilus Pro

The first three are mostly a choice of environments and minor feature preferences. They are focussed on slightly different text editing tasks. All good. Textilus Pro is more like a light version of a word processor. It’s main use (for me) is when I want to edit or create RTF files.

Two apps designed specifically for books and scripts are Scrivener and Storyist. I played with Storyist a few versions ago, and like it; but it did not fit my needs. It’s available on both macOS and iOS. Scrivener is probably more powerful, and looks to be more polished. It’s available on Windows, macOS, and iOS. Both have good reviews and recent updates (showing that they are being maintained).

These are only a few of the text editing apps for the iPad. The problem here is not a lack, but way too many to compare. Which is why the ones I’ve listed are all from reviews of various bloggers and tech writers I follow.

If for some reason you decide to switch to a text editor (especially the last two mentioned) then some research is in order. I tend to focus too much on tools, which is probably one of the reasons I never seem to get round to serious writing.

Good luck.

Note: There have long been rumors of the industry standard Final Draft coming to iOS. So far I’ve only seen a reader, not the full editor.

 

[twerppoet]

Hmm, it appears the Final Draft Mobile is a thing. I wonder how I missed that. However, it’s not showing up directly in search (I had to search for it in stories), and the buy button is grayed out. Seems it’s only compatible with iOS 13.0 and up.

Not that this matters much to you. While you could use Final Draft to create a book, it’s features are heavily weighed towards screenplays. I just find the long saga of it’s iOS app interesting.