Edit Word and Excel Files on an iPhone

Finding ways to leave the laptop at the office (or at home) is a goal for many iPhone and iPod touch owners. A big checkbox on the list of things one must be able to do is view and edit Microsoft Word and Excel documents.

Three developers - two veterans and one new developer - offer laptop-less freedom for Word and Excel productivity.

Overall, these three apps offer very strong editing capabilities and document compatibility. They all make good use of the iPhone's features and screen size, as well. File management/access and price are two aspects that distinguish them from one another.

Documents To Go (by DataViz)
To get Word and Excel files onto and off of an iPhone (or iPod touch), Documents To Go for iPhone requires a desktop companion application (free to download) to synchronize one or more folders of files from a Mac. Documents To Go will automatically update files on either the iPhone or desktop. Of course, you can choose the files and folders to sync.

The syncing feature makes it very easy to transfer files. Sync a file to your iPhone. Edit it on-the-go. Then, click one button to sync the file back to your Mac.

Documents To Go for iPhone is $9.99. DataViz also offers a Premium version (for $14.99) that adds PowerPoint document editing, and support for Microsoft Exchange e-mail and Gmail users who need to send, receive and edit attachments on the iPhone.

Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite (by Quickoffice, Inc.)
Quickoffice takes advantage of the iPhone's Wi-Fi and internet access to connect the iPhone to a Mac or cloud service. Copy documents to and from MobileMe, Dropbox, Google Docs and Box.net. Also, transfer documents via Wi-Fi by mounting your iPhone as a drive on your Mac. Or, transfer files using a web browser. Quickoffice offers the most ways to get documents and files to and from the iPhone.

Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite is $9.99. A $7.99 version, Quickoffice Mobile Suite, (without cloud services features) is also available.

Office² (by Byte²)
Byte² is a new developer with a solid Word documents and Excel spreadsheet app. Store and retrieve files from Google Docs and MobileMe, by mounting an iPhone as a drive over Wi-Fi, or via a web browser.

Office² is $5.99. If you want only Word or Excel editing, Byte Squared offers them separately: Sheet² (for $3.99) and Doc² (for $3.99)