<p>Eventually, Microsoft will bring a touch-optimized version of Office to the iPad. Until that day arrives, however, there's Apple's iWorkand now HopTo, which offers a reskinned version of Word as lovely and useful as an iPad app should be.</p><p>Best of all, it's free, and the HopTo app is available Thursday in the Apple's App Store.</p><p>Why try it? Because other virtualized, cloud-based versions of Office have largely failed to gain traction on tablets, hamstrung by the need to route virtually every instruction through a remote server. The virtualized apps are slow and unresponsive, and always threaten to disconnect and crash at the worst possible time. Worse still, users have typically had to pay for their troubling experiences, often via a monthly subscription.</p><p>The alternative has been to use native iPad apps. Apple's iWork suite is probably the preferred choice, but there's also ByteSquared's Office2HD and DataViz Documents to Go Premium. But various quirkssuch as Apple Page's burial of the "Save As" command, for examplehave left some users pining for something that makes more sense.Hopto can access files from a variety of cloud services.</p><p><a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2062785/">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57612567-75/microsoft-office-hopto-app-hops-onto-the-ipad/">Microsoft Office HopTo app hops onto the iPad</a> (CNET)</p><p><a href="http://www.nasdaq.com/article/microsoft-office-on-ipad-will-new-thirdparty-app-spell-trouble-for-surface-cm301646">Microsoft Office on iPad: Will New Third-Party App Spell Trouble for Surface?</a> (NASDAQ)</p><p><a href="http://appadvice.com/appnn/2013/11/you-dont-need-microsoft-office-on-your-ipad-when-you-can-hopto">You Don't Need Microsoft Office On Your iPad When You Can HopTo</a> (AppAdvice)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=djw2kdkKDCHhhAMhVuBDRvVZYR6hM&ned=us">14 additional articles.</a></p>