Polaris Office Review – Filling the void of mobile content creation

Our rating:

By: Infraware Co.,Ltd

Version #: 4.0.6

Date Released: 2012-08-09

Developer:

Price: 12.99

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When Apple released there iWork apps for the iOS, it was a sign that Apple intended to make the platform an option for portable content creation. While there are those that prefer the simplicity of Apple’s offerings, there are others that want to use their iPad or iPhone for real content creation, but need more power with their document creation tools. Polaris Office is moving to fill this void with a monolithic app similar to the all encompassing Open Office, but with touch screen aesthetics.

As you look over some of Polaris’s general features, it really does remind you are of the open source office app. ’97 and ’07 file compatibility for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as text and PDFs. For storage, Polaris offers a full compliment of options for moving files on and off your device. Google Drive, Dropbox, Box.net, even generic webDAV servers can be used. Finally, Polaris Office registers with the iOS to allow you to open files from your email into Polaris.

Looking at the word processor it is clear that a lot of thought has gone into how a user might go about creating documents on such a small screen. With the iPhone, you can turn to landscape mode to clear the screen of interfaces and leave you with a large canvas to type. Most typing like this is done with an external keyboard, but it is good to know you can make edits to documents even when you lack that. Turning back to portrait provides you a single line of tools which give you common desktop features like adding inline images from your photos, or a file menu where you can save as a PDF, send your documents via email, or even use find and replace. Formatting is all done from within the text select menu. Another interesting feature that has been added the selection menu is sharing text via Facebook or Twitter. From layouts to images, I always felt like Polaris was doing a masterful job of making the bet of a small area to provide as many options as possible.

While word processing is nice, we all know that real business gets done from within a spreadsheet. Polaris offers a large array of options for designing table layouts and even a variety of 2D/3D charts that can be inserted into your documents. For those of us that don’t live in a spreadsheet, but want to take advantage of the over three hundred functions and formulas, there is a helpful menu to search from the function box. Once you have cells linked they even highlight to help you understand your calculation.

Once you word documents have been written, and your number crunched into charts and graphs, you need a tool to set up your presentation. Polaris has you covered here as well with a Powerpoint creation tool. Other documents from polaris can be inserted into the presentation, and there is even a marker feature to let you highlight areas of your slides while you are presenting. Slide notes can also be shown, and the presentation can be easily hooked up to a projector, making this a very portable way to transport and display PowerPoint presentations when you are working out of the office.

While it is clear the Apple is great at making Office software for those that don’t want to work too hard to make a decent document, the average user of Office software needs more control of their documents to be satisfied with the output. Polaris Office offers a surprising amount of power to such a compact package that for anyone looking to create or edit Office documents on the iOS, an investment in Polaris Office would be a very smart move.