Hi IPad Savvy Moms!!
I am an IPad newbie. My husband got it for me to use like a laptop so he would have more computer time on our current Mac laptop. The problem is that I cannot figure stuff out to make myself functional on it like I am on my laptop. Like you moms, I am busy, and I don't have tons of spare time to play around and figure out what I need to do. I have a couple of questions that if you can answer ANY of them, I will be tremendously grateful to you!!
Background: I primarily use my laptop for my recipes that I store digitally in Word docs, an Excel spreadsheet where I keep my "to do" list and then on the Internet for research and recipe ideas. Originally we thought we could get my recipes off our Mac laptop and onto the IPad via ICloud, but we've discovered that our Mac software is too old to upload to ICloud. My husband will look into upgrading our software so I can dump my Word docs into ICloud and then pull into my IPad, but....
1) Do you know of any other ways to get my Word docs onto my IPad?
2) What is the app that will let me access/read/edit/change my recipes that are currently saved as Word docs?
3) If I use Excel to keep my "to do" list is there a better IPad app than that? Currently I have a column for what I need To Do "Today," "This Week," "This Month," and "Long Term"
4) I use gmail for my e-mail, and I am so used to the layout on the laptop that I find the IPad version annoying and frustrating. I would like to know how to delete Spam or other junk e-mail without opening it first. I have not been able to figure it out.
Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU in advance for any help with this stuff!!
God's Grace to you,
Lisa :)
Download this free shareware for Microsoft cpatibity. It will open and create docs compatible with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
You could always get a drop box account and dump everything into drop box. It can be accessed from any computer.
Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. Any file you save to your Dropbox can also automatically save to all your computers, phones, and even the Dropbox website. I actually just use it like a big filing cabinet in the sky that I can access from anywhere. My sister uses something similar from Google called Drive (if you go to the page where you google, the top bar will have "search,images,maps, etc and also Drive). If you make an account on either of those services and move all the files you want to access into it, you can access them from any device after that. But the Apple Stores have classes for newbies that will help you get the most out of your device.
The BEST thing you can do is:
Go to an Apple store, and ask them.
Remember, an iPad is not a desk top computer.
It uses apps.
Then the other problem is, your MAC is an old OS.
So it cannot sync, with iCloud or anything else, per your iPad.
Then, you probably would benefit from using iWork. Which are productivity software, similar to Microsoft's Excel and Word.
Remember, Excel and Word, are not MAC/apple software. It can be run on a MAC, but MAC's have their own Apple versions of this.
ie: Pages, Numbers and Keynote.
And then, there are apps, for organizing and doing what you want do to.
I would, go to an Apple store, and ask them or even take their classes.
But with a current version iPad and on outdated MAC desktop computer, there will be a gap in its ability to sync all.
Take a look at Evernote. You can use it on computer, iPad and iPhone (I use it on my Mac & my phone). I keep all of my recipes there. You might have to spend some time copying/pasting them into Evernote, but it's really handy to have them all in one place once that's done. You can organize them by course, occasion, etc., they are searchable. It's really a great app. I also keep my to-do list there, as well as countless other things (school stuff, medical notes, etc.). What's great is I can work on my lists/notes on my computer, then pull them up on my phone in the kitchen, the store, etc. Best part is that it's free. :) Anyway, take a look - regardless, as someone else mentioned, you really should get away from using Word and Excel for these things. Just not necessary when there are more efficient ways. Good luck!
P.S. I'm guessing you can quickly delete email the same way I do it on my iPhone: while in your inbox, just put your finger at the right edge of your screen (to the right of the message you want to delete) and just quickly swipe your finger from right to left. A red "delete" box will appear, just tap that and the message will be deleted without opening it.
I have an app called "Docs to Go".
You can use it for all Word Docs, so documents, excel and power point.
You sync your computer with your ipad via wifi
You can edit things on both the ipad and the computer and sync back and forth. If you make changes in both places it will ask you which one you want to keep. It doesn't merge changes from both places. But that's not a problem to work with.
I've been usingit for years. I used it with my old PDAs before ipads.
I use it for our inventories for books, movies and music as well as our collectibles.
Don't know the answers to your questions but I had to tell you about AppAdvice. It gives you the down low on apps that are free for that day.
Very useful.
I find the best thing to do is to browse the App Store. Type in 'organiser' or 'to do' and a heap of great apps could appear. Check out the reviews for them though. Have fun in the app shop. There's probably so many there that can be useful to you that you haven't even thought of yet!
Unfortunately I don't know about getting word docs onto the ipad.
Download DROPBOX on your Mac and the Dropbox app on our ipad. You can access pictures, documents, just about anything that way and it is soooo easy! It will download pics automatically and documents can just be "sent to" drop box under your "file" setting where you save your docs on your Mac. It's awesome and its FREE! You can also easily share docs with friends or if you are working on a project with someone else, you can both have access to it (if you want). It's the easiest way to transfer and share that I have found!
I have no clue if there is an ap that will let you dump recipes and things into it. I can tell you that I couldn't live without my Menu planner ap--I'd pay $20 bucks for it! Nor could I like without my Cosi ap.
With these two aps, you can ditch word and excel.
