PDA SOFTWARE REVIEW

Palm Office Suite Comparison:
Quickoffice Premier 7.1, Documents To Go Premium Edition 5, iambic Office

iGo Mobility Electronics Quickoffice Premier 7.1

RATINGS Quality Geekness

DataViz Documents To Go Premium Edition 5

RATINGS Quality Geekness

iambic Office

RATINGS Quality Geekness

I have been using Palm and Pocket PC devices since 1996, and have tried several applications that would allow me to work on Microsoft Word and Excel documents on my PDA. Thanks to the recent release of TextMaker and the seriously underrated SpreadCE applications, along with the powerful Pocket Slides program, Pocket PC devices are starting to make headway into this area. TextMaker has so many functions that it could almost replace a desktop application. I don't know if that is what most people really need in a handheld device application, but power users will rejoice.

However, these three separate programs do not work together like the desktop Microsoft Office suite, where you can paste Excel spreadsheets into Word or PowerPoint documents, etc. In my opinion, Pocket Word and Excel are also rather weak, and their lack of formatting support confuses the average PDA buyer.

After seriously examining and putting the three main Office suites available for Palm OS devices through the paces over the last couple months, I strongly feel that the Palm OS platform offers the best experience with Office document functionality and integration.

Features

Quickoffice Premier 7.1

A select list of features from the iGo site:

• Access native MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files on Memory Sticks, MultiMedia Cards, and Secure Digital cards when using Palm OS 4.0 and later.
• Ability to send and receive Word, Excel, and PowerPoint native documents within compatible e-mail applications, such as Snapperfish Ltd.'s SnapperMail.
• Ability to receive beamed native MS Office files from Pocket PCs and laptops via IR or Bluetooth transfer.
• Full-screen support in Quickpoint, Quicksheet, and Quickword for the newest high resolution devices such as the Sony NX, NZ, and Tungsten T and W series handhelds with 320x320 and 320x480 pixel displays.
• All New Quickpics desktop utility lets you drag and drop any image from your PC to make Quickalbums of your photos ready for viewing and sharing in Quickpoint. You can even project your pictures to any monitor with iGo Pitch
• Full Version of Printboy now included, so you can print your PIM information and your documents anywhere

Documents To Go Premium Edition 5

A select list of features from the DataViz site:

• Embedded graphic support
• High-resolution support (including NR/NX/NZ series)
• Character formatting (bold, italics, underline, colors, font type & size, superscript, subscript, ALL CAPS, etc.)
• Document formatting (tables, indents, paragraph alignment, line spacing, page breaks, bullets & numbering, etc.)
• Expansion card support
• Multiple PC synchronization
• Add, edit, and recalculate over 110 functions
• Hide, freeze, widen, insert and delete rows & columns
• Cell formatting (color, bold, alignment, locked)
• Number formatting (general, fixed, scientific, currency, percent, text, date & time)

iambic Office

A select list of features from the iambic site:

• Create, edit, and sync documents and spreadsheets anywhere, any time.
• Strong keyboard support.
• Feature-rich document reading and editing on your handheld.
• Powerful and complete spreadsheet capability you can take with you.
• Get your e-mail with attached Microsoft Word and Excel files, plus text files, RTF files, and even HTML files!
• TinySheet supports more functions than any other Palm OS spreadsheet.
• Jog Dial support.

Installation

Installation of all three suites is performed by running the executable file and following the on-screen prompts. A conduit for each suite is added to the HotSync Manager. In addition, a desktop document manager is installed for each that allows you to specify the documents that will be synced, change the settings for future synchronization, categorize the documents, and perform other document functions. You can open the documents on your desktop from within these document managers. Menus and shortcuts are also added to desktop versions of Office applications to make document conversion quick and easy. Each document manager is slightly different, but performs primarily the same functions. This review will focus on the Palm-based part of each application.

Documents can be added to each application using the menu within the Office application, from selecting the document in the document manager, or by dragging and dropping into the document manager's window. iambic Office does have the most detailed and extensive desktop document manager to help ensure document integrity.

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