Recently, I've become increasingly frustrated using Word on the iPad. Despite paying annually for an Office365 subscription, Microsoft Word on the iPad has limited features in comparison to the desktop app and, most frustratingly, doesn't let you change all of the individual line formatting as does the desktop app and noticed that how my documents appear formatted on the iPad in Word aren't how they actually appear formatted when imported into desktop Word. Additionally, I found that Word would not consistently auto-save my work and would lose documents I was working on because of that. Thus, I began searching for alternatives; Apple's Pages is free and nice but rather stark and limited in its features. I then found TextMaker-- an app that I had used on one of my old non-Apple devices more than a decade ago and tried it out. It works great! The free version has all the basic features I would want in a personal (and basic work) word processor, and the controls are easy to figure out (and can be configured in several different styles based on the user preference). If there is something you can't figure out there is a link to an easily readable and indexed user manual! So far, the app is rock solid in its performance (and not tied to an online server like Office 365) and can save documents in Word format if I want (which so far have looked great when imported into Word). In-app purchases are for things that might be helpful but not essential (e.g. covert document to PDF) which seems reasonable. Would highly recommend people consider this app if they are not happy with Word.

I am a big fan of SoftMaker Office Professional 2021 on my iMacs. Simply put, TextMaker is an excellent word processor. Ditto for their iOS version. It makes going from working on your iMac or macBook to your iPad pretty seamless. The free iOS version of TextMaker is fine if you don’t need to print or convert documents to PDF. And even then, you can create a document in TextMaker on your iPad and pass it to your iMac or MacBook and print it that way. For me, the annual fee is a fair price for the convenience of printing without extra steps. What can I say? Every software developer and their Aunt Mable wants a steady cash flow, hence subscription software abounds. I’m hoping the fine folks at SoftMaker will eventually offer a “buy it once and own it” iOS option in the future. Either way, the bottom line is this: if you want MS Word on your iPad or iPhone without buying into the whole Microsoft Office 365 environment, look no further. And yes, I wrote and spellchecked this on TextMaker on my iPad. Duh. :) Hope my comments are helpful.

I used SoftMaker’s FreeOffice products on my Windows PC’s for years before my organization required me to install Microsoft 365 products on them. With my 365 license I also installed Microsoft products on my iPad Pro as well which I sometimes use as a backup laptop. In recent months 365 products have been come unusably buggy and glitchy, so I downloaded SoftMaker’s products to try. They work wonderfully! Exact same experience as on Windows. Very user friendly, detailed instructions on how to use, clean interface, very snappy and responsive. Bottom line they just WORK when I need them to, every time! (Unlike 365, which is pathetic given SoftMaker’s budget vs. Microsoft’s budget.) Definitely recommend!

Strange bug thats a little bit amusing I don’t know if anyone else has been having this problem. I’m running a iPad ninth generation. For some reason, it randomly calls up the Text to Speech feature of iOS and starts speaking gibberish. It joins words together in the text randomly. Kind of sounds like a baby learning to speak for the first time.. Or somebody that’s had one too many beers…Think it might have something to do with the accessibility options. I’ve got the accessibility options to speak words as I type.