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Hi. I use my iPad for work (I’m a teacher) but when I’m at work I store a lot of my things on a USB flash drive. I know that there is an Apple Lightning to USB3 adapter and I was wondering if I purchased one, would I be able to access the files on my USB stick on my iPad - I.e word documents, PowerPoints, etc? or is it just for being able to access music/photos?
I have an IPad Air 2
Thanks
iPad Air 2, iPadOS 13
With iPadOS13, you have have considerable flexibility. Provided that the external storage is correctly partitioned and formatted, in (as with any computing platform), you’ll be able to access most files for which you can find appropriate Apps. You are not limited to music or photos.
Standard file types for Microsoft Office products, such as Word, Powerpoint, Excel etc, are all accessible.
With iPadOS13, you have have considerable flexibility. Provided that the external storage is correctly partitioned and formatted, in (as with any computing platform), you’ll be able to access most files for which you can find appropriate Apps. You are not limited to music or photos.
Standard file types for Microsoft Office products, such as Word, Powerpoint, Excel etc, are all accessible.
If these computing terms are alien to you, then you’re maybe going to need to do a little research and learning.
To work with your iPad, the storage device must only have a single data partition - and be formatted to FAT, FAT32, exFAT or APFS. The “partitioning” and “format” describes how the stored data is structured on the device - and this must conform to one of the standards that iPadOS can support.
FAT and its variants are fairly universal. APFS is an Apple proprietary standard; if you don’t use a Mac computer, you can forget about it. If you a PC, then you’ll not be able to use Microsoft proprietary standards such as NTFS (another standard that Apple Mac computers don’t support).
Most ordinary USB flash drives (a.k.a., “thumb drive”, “memory stick” etc) will be formatted from the factory using FAT32. If you reformat the device on a PC or Mac, just make sure that you choose one of the FAT standards.
Hi, thank you for your reply. Sorry, but I am not great with anything other than basic technology. What do you mean by ‘correctly partitioned and formatted’?
Thank you for your help
Super - I understand what you’re saying. Thank you for taking the time to reply. I really do appreciate it.
You’re very welcome. I’m pleased to have been able to help.
Flash drive with iPad
