Documents To GO posts

Filed under: Windows Mobile, Palm, Office, Productivity, Commercial

Documents To Go bringing mobile office apps to Smartphones

by Brad Linder Jan 11th 2007

In one of those baffling decisions that Microsoft sometimes makes, the company decided that Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone users didn't need those advanced features that Pocket PC users have, like say... mobile versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Sure, there's no touch-screen interface on Smartphones for using those programs that way you would on a Pocket PC, but there's no touch-screen interface on most PCs running Microsoft Office either.

Well, DataViz, makers of Documents To Go for PalmOS devices have decided that those programs run just fine on Smartphones. So they're porting their software to run on Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphones including the Motorola Q, Samsung BlackJack, and T-Mobile Dash.

The suite, which is available as a public beta right now lets you view, edit, and create Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. You can also view PDF files, and extra ZIP files, two functions that Microsoft has never included.

No word on pricing yet, but the Palm version of Documents To Go sells for $30 to $90 depending on which functions you need, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Windows Mobile version will be comparably priced.

Tags: DataViz, Documents To GO, DocumentsToGo, excel, powerpoint, smartphone, word

Filed under: Windows Mobile, Palm

Office suite updates for your PDA

by Brad Linder Nov 11th 2006

Documents To Go and Softmaker Office 2006

PalmOS and Windows Mobile devices generally come with basic document viewing and editing software. You an create and edit simple spreadsheets and text documents. But if you want advanced features like editing footnotes or on-the-fly spell checking, you need to look elsewhere.

In the last month, two of the biggest names in handheld office suites have released updates. DataViz Documents To Go for PalmOS is up to version 9, and SoftMaker Office 2006 final edition for Pocket PC was released this week.

Some of the new features:

Documents To Go

View and edit footnotes and endnotes in word processing files
View and edit comments in word processing files
Added new zoom levels for pictures and presentations
Added an integrated file explorer
There's no longer support for Word 95, Wordperfect, WordPro, RTF, Palm Doc, Excel 95, Word 6 for Mac files.
There's also no longer support for Palm's Tungsten T, T2, Zire 21, Zire 31, Zire 71, or for what looks like pretty much Sony's entire line of PalmOS PDAs. For a complete list of changes, click the read link.

SoftMaker Office 2006

Import OpenOffice.org and OpenDocument files
Track changes to your document
Improved filters for Microsoft Word and RT documents
Split and Merge table cells
Bibliography support

Documents To Go is available for $30 for the standard edition (just a word processor and spreadsheet), or $50 for the premium edition, (with support for PDF files, presentations, spell-checking, and other advanced features). Upgrades from an earlier version are $30

SoftMaker Office is available for $70. Or you can pick up just the spreadsheet or word processing software for $50 each. For $100 you can get the whole bundle plus versions of the software for Windows. Upgrade options are available as well. Both programs offer 30 day free trials of their software.

Tags: dataviz, documents to go, DocumentsToGo, excel, office, planmaker, softmaker, spreadshet, textmaker, word, word processing, word processor, WordProcessing, WordProcessor

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

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