Documents To Go 622 September 2003
I love word processors. The whole reason I got a Palm in the first place was to do word processing anytime, anywhere, as soon as the muse struck. Yet pocket-sized word processors have always been something of a compromise. Yes, they've come a long way from the basic text editors with which I started, but they've never been the equal of their desktop brethren (with the possible exception of TextMaker on the Pocket PC, which is amazing, if too large and too slow for my tastes). On the Palm, this compromise has always been more pronounced than it has been on Windows CE platforms. After all, PalmOS requires everything to be converted into a Palm database before it can be used, so even word processors that can handle the features of desktop word processing still have to contend with necessary file format conversions. This required conversion step is a severe shortcoming, making it nearly impossible to share your work with others without filtering it through a PC first. In this age of nearly ubiquitous wireless communication, needing a PC to send a document is crippling. PalmOS users, your wait is over. DataViz's new Documents To Go version 6 is a marvel, the most capable word processor available for PalmOS. This review will cover the new features of version 6, and I'm pretty much only covering the word processing component of what is a full office suite. Documents To Go Premium allows you to edit Excel workbooks, Powerpoint presentations and charts, even view PDF files, but for now, I'm only interested in Word To Go. And I think this version provides more than enough to talk about. The biggest of the new features is that Documents To Go version 6 now allows you sync, edit and save documents as native Microsoft Word .DOC files. This is such an unbelievable leap forward for PalmOS that I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around it. Basically, I can edit a Word document on my storage card, pop the card out and put it in my card reader (a Lexar Jumpdrive Trio), pop that into a PC's USB port and open the file in Word on the desktop. No conversion, no mess. I receive a Word document as an email attachment, edit it on my Palm and send the changed copy back without involving the desktop at all (granted, this will work better for me personally when I can get some form of wireless networking for my Zire 71, but in theory, it's all there). And unlike Pocket Word on the Pocket PC, editing a Word document on my Palm doesn't mean losing tables and other sophisticated formatting. In my initial testing, this feature does indeed work as advertised. Files on the card show up as standard Word files on my laptop and files in the Palm's internal memory, while showing up in Filez as Palm databases of the type MSWD, beam to Pocket PCs and attach to emails as normal Word documents. Given that there is essentially no converting involved, "round-tripping" to the desktop is perfect. Syncing a 80,000 word manuscript takes a ton of time, but it's actually easy enough to save the really big files as Word To Go format, which opens and saves almost instantaneously and syncs fast. I only really need to keep the small stuff in Word format for emailing with VersaMail. In short, this is what word processing on a PDA should have been in the first place. While native file support would have been a more-than-compelling upgrade, DataViz changed a lot more. The new version also supports word count, including just selected text. The word count function tells you words, paragraphs (who uses that statistic?), characters and characters minus spaces. If you select text, you get the stats just for the selection. Writing comics, this is a wonderful feature as it allows me to make sure that dialogue balloons don't contain more text than will fit into the balloon. Another first for Documents To Go is spell checking. You get to choose between US and UK English, spelling only, no thesaurus. The spell check is lightning fast, with a catch. It's fast because it doesn't automatically search for suggestions on misspelled words. If you don't see the error yourself or if it's not a word you want to add to the custom dictionary, you have to tap to find suggestions, and this takes a few seconds. I actually prefer it this way as it makes the entire spell checking process faster and I only rarely need it to suggest alternate words. Pop-up keyboard support is built in to the application, integrating itself into the Word To Go editing screen rather than a dialog box. This allows you to make full use of DTG's formatting features while tapping. Documents To Go has got incredible card support. Files can be moved back and forth from the palmtop to the card, and all documents share the same categories no matter where they're actually located. Files in internal memory, even the "native" files, are still Palm databases that are translated on the fly to Office formats when beamed or emailed, but files on the card are truly native, suitable for sharing via a card reader. Okay, so it's got some great features. Does Documents To Go 6 have any downsides? Well, yeah, a few. Nothing's perfect. For one thing, there's no auto-shift. For reasons unknown, Documents To Go does not respect the system auto-shift preferences, and if you're writing with Graffiti you have to train yourself to write the shift stroke at the beginning of each sentence. Or, you could use various features in MiddleCaps Hack, TealScript, Crossing Over or Graffiti 2 to capitalize letters that cross the alphanumeric boundary. Unlike WordSmith, Documents To Go 6 provides only limited support for document structure. There is no heading level control, for example. Though unlike Pocket Word, Documents To Go does not destroy these features. You can't access them from the handheld, but they're still there when you edit the file on the desktop. Lastly, Documents To Go 6 is a little slow on novel-length documents. I tried it out on my Zire 71 with an 80,000 word manuscript, and it took a long time to both open and save a file in native Microsoft Word format. I don't know if this is a limitation of my 144MHz CPU, or the fact that it was on the card, or what. I can say that when I converted the file to Word To Go format, it opened and saved almost instantly. On the whole, I'm damn impressed. This is my word processor from here on out. Well, at least until the PalmOS version of TextMaker comes out. Jeff Kirvin
Jeff Kirvin is available for consulting on mobile technology. Email me today! |