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Since the introduction of iCloud with iOS 5, it appears that most new applications now include the ability to interact with this service. After using iCloud with different apps, it became apparent that I needed to find a way to import Google Documents to iCloud. This tutorial will provide a real-world example on the steps I did to accomplish this.

First things first — three prerequisites.
1) To follow the steps used in this tutorial, you must first have the application known as GoodReader. I have found many ways to use this very handy application on the iPad and iPhone and consider it one of the key tools in my iOS arsenal of “can’t live without” apps.

2) If you plan on following the final (but not required) editing steps, Pages is highly recommended for text editing and should also be considered one of the “necessary” apps — especially on the iPad.

3) The final – but most import prerequisite is ensuring your device(s) have been set up to use iCloud. Apple has a easy to follow guide here.

After installing and iCloud setup the first step in this tutorial is about finding or creating a Google document to import into iCloud:

Please note: If creating or selecting an existing document, ensure that the name is not Untitled document, you can change the name of a Google document by clicking on the name itself whilst editing it. This will make the process much easier for transferral to iCloud.

A dialog will prompt you to enter a new name:

The document has been renamed, click the arrow next to the document name to return to the Google Documents list.

After a valid document is in the list, it is now possible to add it to an iCloud repository via GoodReader:

Turn to your iPad or iPhone and open the GoodReader application:

After GoodReader opens, tap the Connnect to Servers section in the right pane, then tap the Add button:

In the Create New Connection dialog, select the Google Docs option.

At this point, GoodReader will prompt for Google Docs login credentials. I used Glasskeys Google Docs in the Readable Title field so in the future I will be able to quickly ascertain the type of server by looking at the name.

Tap the newly added connection to the Google Docs server in the list, then select a document and tap the Download button.

In the Download As: menu select Doc as the file type. This instructs GoodReader to treat the file as a Microsoft Word document.

Now that a Google Document has been selected for download, GoodReader now needs to know where to place it, tap the iCloud entry in the My Documents dialog window:

The iCloud folder window appears, if you have just connected to iCloud this folder may be empty as mine was. In any event, tap the Download file here button to initiate the download process.

The iCloud window will disappear, tap the Close button when you no longer wish to download Google Docs.

iCloud now has a (1) next to it, which equals the number of files in the folder. Notice also the Recent Downloads category showing the recently downloaded Google document with a status of Finished. Tap the iCloud folder icon once more:

Now select the Manage Files category at right, tap the converted Google Word document in the lefthand folder (the empty circle will change to a green tick mark), and finally tap the Open In… button to select an application to open the document.

A dialog will appear with a list of app(s), I chose Pages as the app to open the converted iCloud document:

The app selected will now attempt to open the document, Pages displays a window and progress bar during the import process:

You will almost certainly see the Document Import Warnings window. This is a normal occurrence whilst opening converted Google Docs the first time. Pages is letting you know that it is substituting fonts with a native type, matching styles as closely as possible.

When done importing, the document appears for selection in the Pages document window. Tap the document to edit:

The document appears with the same text as the one created in Google Docs:

To test iCloud functionality, I decided to bold and underline “iCloud”.

I then decide to open Pages on my iPhone as it has also been signed into iCloud. The “My Google Document” has automatically appeared in the document window, so I then opened the document to see if the bold and underlining were also updated:

The document displays the bold and underlined word change, demonstrating iCloud is working correctly across all of my iOS 5 devices: