best handheld office suite

[100thMonkey]

I am considering leaving the old REX 6000 and laptop and moving to Palm or PPC OS. I would like to know thoughts, experiences, opinions on what is the best handheld software for working with, i.e. creating, editing, modifying, saving, and syncing with MS Office 2000. If you have an opinion on a s/w product not in my poll, please reply and I will be more than happy to read it :-)

[ebisix]

I hear that Documents to Go by Dataviz works even better than Pocket Office.

[Alakhai]

Originally posted by 100thMonkey
I would like to know thoughts, experiences, opinions on what is the best handheld software for working with, i.e. creating, editing, modifying, saving, and syncing with MS Office 2000.

I've been using various Handheld- and Pocket PC's since early 1999, and I've also used all Pocket Office (Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint) versions but the latest one.

As for PalmOS devices, I've had my Tungsten for only two weeks, but there's no doubt -- Dataviz' Documents To Go is so much better than Microsoft Pocket Office.

The main difference between Documents To Go and Pocket Office is that Microsoft's solution require that you save all documents that should be available on/to your handheld in a specific folder.

The ActiveSync process automatically makes sure the latest version is stored on both the desktop PC and the Handheld- (with built-in keyboard) or Pocket (without keyboard) PC.

BUT, and this is important, information synchonized FROM Pocket Office overwrites special formatting in the desktop document, thus discarding headers, footers, tables -- basically everything not supported by the Rich Text Format (RTF).

Documents To Go, on the other hand, let you keep your files wherever you want on your desktop PC (or Mac). Instead of saving them to a special folder, you'll have to start the Documents To Go HotSync agent and tell the agent which documents to include in HotSync.

The real advantage is the synchronization itself. While Pocket Office discards almost any formatting, Documents To Go retain most of it. Also, when an edited document is synchronized back onto the desktop PC, the original document isn't owerwritten.

Instead, only the changes are inserted into the existing document, thus retaining ALL original formatting -- even formatting not supported on the Palm device.

However, there is one other thing I must tell you.

Microsoft Handheld- and Pocket PC's does have some advantages when it comes to synchronizing e-mail attachments via i.e. a dial-up connection.

This is also possible with a Palm device, but requires Inbox To Go ($50) from Dataviz. However, there still are some technical details that makes me prefer the Microsoft way of handling this.

Feel free to e-mail me if you'd like some further information about Pocket Office vs. Documents To Go.


/ Martin

[Bill Westwood]

I agree with Alakhai. i prefer Quick Office which also does all these things, unfortunately you would have to buy it separately :(

[mmmkay]

Docs to go is the best so far :)

I've used quickword and the suite - I found it to be lacking in some areas while doing better in other areas (such as on screen display of fonts and colours etc)

If you can read small text on the Tungsten, docs to go is great, it looks almost like the document on the desktop. Tables and stuff are preserved, etc etc. I haven't had a problem other than sometimes having documents that I create on the Tungsten not synchronised properly to the desktop.

I used to have a Philips Nino (winCE 2.0) which didn't have any word processing software etc, and a NEC mobilepro 400 (winCE 1.0) which did have pocket word and excel. Docs to go is by far much better :-) But you can't really compare.. I have not had a chance to try pocket office on the newer PocketPCs much, since I never bought a PPC. I did have a chance to try it once, and the handwriting recognition was okay too. Not too bad, but not quick either.

[plyte]

It works perfectly with my mobile Phonge and the tT. You can receive and re-send attachments without loosing formatting.
Great app. Perhaps to expensive. Could shrink down the price a bit.

Plyte

[mmmkay]

But now that you've bought it, does it matter whether they drop the price :-)

hehe.