Can Word documents be stored in iCloud?

cscottredding wrote:

Yes! You CAN upload Word, Excel, and powerpoint documents to iCloud. A patch was released that allows you to store Microsoft files in iCloud. I just tried it and it works. HOWEVER. If you open the document on your iOS device in the corresponding app, it will convert the document to the format of the application. You can open a copy and the original Microsoft document will be in tact. PDFs are still not an acceptable format and certain older versions of Microsoft documents will not upload.

Can you post a link please

There's no link, it wasnt really a patch, it was an update to the iCloud website.

To upload your document, go to iCloud.com, sign in, click the iWork icon. On that site, choose the tab for the type of document you are uploading, then drag your document into the web page and it will upload.

Once it is uploaded it will appear on your iOS devices and can be opened and edited but will be converted to an iWork document in the process.

No thanks, my current sync system requires only 1 action, save the file. It is then available on any or all of my devices (IOS, Android, PC, Mac, and more) and it is still a .doc file.

The method you propose has so many user steps and results in a file format change ?

😁😁😁

Hi,

Do I get it right ? Do I need do buy an iPad to be able to share my docs between my 2 Macs using iCloud? When I click on the iWork icon on the icloud.com it asks me to install Pages for iOS ...

Interesting, if true ...

cheers, BB

@Bison

Yes and No. I think we've covered this pretty thoroughly in the other 3 pages, but here it is again:

iCloud Documents and Data is CURRENTLY intended to help you sync documents between your computer and your iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod). It uses the iCloud.com website because the documents need to be translated - iOS uses a completely different format for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote than OS X does.

Now, you MAY be able to sync documents between computers using iCloud, by using the ~/Library/Mobile Documents directory (see earlier posts to explain that, I'm not going to repeat it). This works for some people, others not so much. YMMV.

If you really want to sync between computers there are lots of good, free solutions (Dropbox, Sugarsync, Skydrive) that will let you do that much more easily and reliably than iCloud currently does. In the next OS release, coming soon, iCloud will get more syncing powers.

This isn't my proposed solution, it's just how it currently works. If you upload a .doc file to iCloud and open it in Pages, it WILL have a format change because that's how Pages works. To get it back off of iCloud as a Word documents, you'd have to export it that way from iOS, or grab it from the iCloud website.

I'm not trying to propose anything, just state how the system is currently set up to work. I don't like it either, which is why I'm still using SugarSync. I only send documents through iCloud if I've started them on my iOS device and need to get them on my computer. I don't deliberately sync anything that way.

I have been reading along and following the approximately 12,000 posts this topic brought up.

I am now using DropBox. This is the best solution that I have been able to find. It is very simple, and works each and every time.

Best of luck.

Matt

Stephen,

W/o an iOS device I cannot start iCloud at all. (icloud.com brings me to pages for iOS download page). So any hacks with subdirectories wil not work, will they ? iWork is not cloudy w/o an iOS device ;-(

cheers BB

That's a good question. I would expect that if you signed into iCloud on two different Macs and enabled Documents and Data syncing on them both, the directories would still be created (you might need to upload a document via iCloud.com first) and would still sync between Macs. It's still a crappy solution vs something like Sugarsync though.

I just rebuilt my system with the 10.8 developer seed (formatted the disk) and my ~/Library/Mobile Documents directory appeared immediately, even though I hadn't done anything in iOS, but maybe that's because I have the iOS apps "registered" in iCloud.

Maybe someone else who doesn't use the iOS apps can confirm?

Why replace Mobile-me with icloud. To store my documents I am now running between Docs to Go and SugerSync. iCloud is a huge step back from MobileMe when it comes to documents. What was Apple thinking???

mcbently wrote:

CRAP!!!

So the big bonus about MobleMe was being able to upload documents and store them there, then be able to access them from anywhere. That is what I want from iCoud.

Why is Apple can never seem to get the business side of computing set up correctly?

iCloud is a consumer system, using it for business is unwise as it lacks the facilities required.

I'm using Google Drive now, works great. Does everything I want. Better then SugarSync by the way.

Nefertete wrote:

I'm using Google Drive now, works great. Does everything I want. Better then SugarSync by the way.

Google Drive does not allow you yo sync folders and files in situ, it does not allow syncing of more than 1 folder, it has no archive, you can not backup and restore an entire documents folder complete with subfolders: and there are many other tasks that Google Drive can't do and Sugarsync can. Do a little research before you post.

Google Drive also does not allow for encrypted Excel files to be accessed remotely.

what is your method?