Quickoffice and SnapperMail Bring Native Office File Support to the Palm OS

[Ed Hardy]

Quickoffice Premier 7 will finally allow people to use Microsoft Office documents in their native formats on Palm OS handhelds. Plus, SnapperMail will let users easily exchange these files as email attachments.

Read more about these applications at http://www.brighthand.com/article/Qu...e_File_Support

[imported_tedh]

Hi Ed,

This is exciting news for Palm users and I expect that DataViz will be showcasing their solution soon, since they also indicated working on native Office file support for their Documents To Go product.

Just one point I need clarified. I noticed that you indicated in your article that "For example, Quickoffice doesn't support images and, if a Word File with an image is opened, edited, and re-saved, the image will be removed."

Yet on the Cutting Edge Software site that contains details on QuickOffice Premier (http://www.cesinc.com/quickoffice_premier/details.html
), it states

"Fully seamless desktop-sync integration with MS Word 2000, 2002 (XP) or newer, including full preservation of linked document formatting and embedded and pasted image preservation"

I take it this means that images are kept in the document, thus eliminating the potential loss of images when editing in QuickWord. Hopefully their support for tables will also be improved.

[Ed Hardy]

Keep in mind, there are two ways to access a Microsoft Word file in Quickword. One is to use the conduit, the other is to edit the .doc file in its native format. The conduit does a better job of preserving the images than the app does when directly editing a native file.

[Batmon]

How does the beta handle:
-embedded chart in excell
-Picture in Word.
-Support of truetype, unicode in Word.
-Can the powerpoint create presentation.

what is the memory requirement of overall package?

[Scott R]

A few points:
1) I'm glad to see that QuickOffice hasn't abandoned the conduit-concept. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that conduit-converted documents are smaller than the originals. For some people, that may be an important "feature."
2) SnapperMail seems to be a great product. I've been doing some research on TreoCentral (since I recently got a Treo 300 and am looking to dive into always-on email) and SnapperMail seems to be the favorite right now (so long as you only need POP3 support - though IMAP is coming in the future). The developer, Will Lau, appears to be very hard-working, friendly, and responsive.
3) For people who mainly want "real" document support via email, I believe an alternative that SnapperMail and QuickOffice already support is to have you forward a "real" document to a special automated QuickOffice email address and they'll forward you back a QuickOffice converted version. Conversely, you can forward a QuickOffice-converted document to this address and it will forward you back a "real" document (for you to send along to someone else). I haven't tried this (since I don't own either product - yet) but I hope they plan to continue this support since the Treo's lack of memory expansion will require that I be more frugal with my memory usage.

Scott

[Ed Hardy]

This was posted in another thread but it was so on-topic here I'm posting a copy:

Originally posted by CSimpson
Now it is possible to receive an email via a PalmOS device, open an attached zip file containing a native MS Office document, edit, append, spellcheck, reformat (albeit to a lesser degree than possible on a desktop computer) the file, add the revised version to a new zip file, then email it as an attachment to a PC user (with the edits done on the handheld and without stripping the original document's formatting).

I've installed the demo, and found it that it does indeed deliver what it promises. While this particular app doesn't display inline images, it doesn't strip them out when copying the file to another system either. Tables are somewhat scrambled, but cell contents are viewable and editable (again, it's not pretty, but can be done). Simialrly, charts mebedded in Excel spreadsheets are also not available, but not corrputed either.

I installed the word processing and spreadsheet apps (leaving off the other options such as PowerPoint and email clients), and the total size of the installed files for my test was 514k. This includes the spellchek/thesarus dictionary, converter program, shared libraries, etc.. Time to open and completely display a six page (55k) Word file consisteing of text only was 14 seconds. A larger, more complicated file (664k with tables and inline images) took 21 seconds. My testbed was a 33MHz Dragonball-based device running PalmOS 4.1, so I think it's reasonable to expect faster rendering speeds on newer devices.

To relate this back to the topic of the thread, many business users look at MS office compatibility as a major factor in their choice of handhelds. In fact, I heard from someone the other day who migrated from PalmOS to PocketPC OS just for the capability to work with native MS Office files (interestingly enough, this particular user dislkikes most other aspects of his new device and is planning to switch back to PalmOS once his current project is over and he no longer needs the MS Office support).

For the past couple of years, PalmOS software has met and exceeded the abilities of PocketPC software in many MS Office-related capabilities. Microsoft has used PocketWord/Excel's ability to work with native file formats as an offset to persuade users to choose the PocketPC platform. Now PalmOS vendors have negated that specific factor.

How I see it, this is great news for PocketPC users, as this increase in competition is the only likely motivation for Microsoft to improve its PocketOffice apps. The same principle makes me happy about Dell and ViewSonic selling lower cost PocketPC's as I know this is gogin to lower the price of the next PalmOS-based device I buy.

As has been stated many times before in these forums, competition is good for all of us :-)

[TawnerX]

14/21 seconds to open a small doc file, no inline image viewing, table not available.

It seems to hit the same limitation as PPC apps.

"For the past couple of years, PalmOS software has met and exceeded the abilities of PocketPC software in many MS Office-related capabilities. "

This guy apparently hasn't met Textmaker or spreadCE, with support of only 80 equations and no macro, I don't think he can brag about anything yet.

[imported_CSimpson]

Originally posted by TawnerX
This guy apparently hasn't met Textmaker or spreadCE, with support of only 80 equations and no macro, I don't think he can brag about anything yet.

This post wasn't to brag, but rather to reply to an earlier poster who derided PalmOS word processors as "mickey mouse" software that required desktop conduits to do all the heavy lifting. The original poster cast aspersions on the ability of developers to deliver native file support on PalmOS anytime soon, then went on to say that if this could be done at some future juncture, that it would most likely bloat the footprint of the software. I was simply pointing out that all of these assumptions turned out to be wrong.

I'm sorry if you feel threatened by the increasing abilities of the PalmOS platform, and suggest that to avoid further agitation in the future that you stop following threads relating to PalmOS developments.

As for Textmaker, I hear it's a great program that has helped the PocketPC platform catch up in many areas, but it is of no use to my company, since we have standardized on PalmOS for our handhelds. At the time we made our decision, nothing with close to the features of Textmaker was available for PocketPC's, and our requirements for handhelds include the ability to view and edit tables within MS Word documents. Even if Textmaker was available, we would still have probably chosen PalmOS due to its interface, device formfactor, more reliable desktop syncing, and lower average TCO. As I mentioned in my earlier post, MS Office integration can be a dealmaker for businesses in selecting PDA's, and for many businesses' specific usees, the out-of-box advantage still goes to PalmOS.

Though Textmaker and SpreadCE offer better features than PocketWord/Office, I wonder how many IT buyers who are new to handhelds turn this up in their pre-purchase research. Unfortunately, at many companies' IT departments, handhelds are still the bastard stepchildren of the computer family and IMO don't receive the consideration and planning/deliberation they deserve. Here again I think PalmOS-based companies have created an advantage by bundling third party apps such as DTG with their handhelds, raising greater awareness among even casual perusers.

[TawnerX]

It's great to know altered egos are being used

1.The good isn't being delivered yet. It's only nice beta, hence I still can indulge the notion it's a vaporware. I am sure it will be finalized soon and "exceed" the capability of PPC apps. In the meantime, it's either vaporous, or mickey mouse. I don't have to assume anything. I am sure the final product will come out any day now.

2. I am not threatened, but in awe, how a Palm developer can start claiming "exceeded the ability" without delivering the goods first, even that with only half the final product spec. So I asked what's really behind the claim.

3. I am sure companies will run and adopt quickoffice, while automatically shun Textmaker and spreadCE as you say. TCO, office integration, deal maker or breaker or whatever else are nice and dandy. But don't we need a finish product first before anybody actually can calculate TCO or claim better office integration than Textmaker and spreadCE?

Plus, really, what's the worry, you are going to get an easy review anyway. All your product have to do is not crash, and all the Palm sites including this one will give you two tumbs up saying it is the best killer apps since the wordprocessor itself. Who care if it can only display blank screen with a sprinkle of garbled text. But half legible bomb will garner four tumbs up I can guarantee you, not to worry.

[imported_CSimpson]

Originally posted by TawnerX
It's great to know altered egos are being used

1.The good isn't being delivered yet. It's only nice beta, hence I still can indulge the notion it's a vaporware. I am sure it will be finalized soon and "exceed" the capability of PPC apps. In the meantime, it's either vaporous, or mickey mouse. I don't have to assume anything. I am sure the final product will come out any day now.

It's very easy to verify whether it is vaporware or not-- just download a copy and try it. It's available right now. It works right now. I put it through its paces and didn't encounter any errors or problems. It does what it promises to do.

2. I am not threatened, but in awe, how a Palm developer can start claiming "exceeded the ability" without delivering the goods first, even that with only half the final product spec. So I asked what's really behind the claim.

Reread the thread and you'll see that there was no claim that QuickOffice or any other PalmOS word processor exceeds the abilties of TextMaker. The claim that is made is that before TextMaker came out,that PalmOS-based office software offered some important features which were not avaiable on the PocketPC platform. When my company decided which handheld OS to standardize upon, nothing available on the PocktPC platform could meet our needs. Now with TextMaker, the platform would meet and even exceed our needs for mobile word processing, and on that particular point would be a contender. But again, to put things back in context, the original posts were comparing third party PalmOS word processors to PocketWord and PocketExcel.

3. I am sure companies will run and adopt quickoffice, while automatically shun Textmaker and spreadCE as you say.
TCO, office integration, deal maker or breaker or whatever else are nice and dandy. But don't we need a finish product first before anybody actually can calculate TCO or claim better office integration than Textmaker and spreadCE?

TCO refers to the total cost of ownership of the device, not just one particular app. Figured into this calculation are factors such as hardware cost, software cost, the man-hours for training, technicalsupport, lost time due to device failure, etc.. PalmOS-based devices are pruproted to have a significantly lower TCO than PocketPC devices. This is why even if TextMaker with its advanced word processing features were avaiable when we chose our platform, we would have probably still gone with PalmOS, as the platform support the particular features our business needed, our end users found the interface better, and our operations people valued the lower TCO.

Again, no one is trying to diminish the features of your favorite PocketPC office apps. The original post which you're getting so bent out of shape about refutes the claim that the PalmOS platform wouldn't be able to handle native MS Office files anytime soon, and that if it could, the apps to do so would balloon to much larger memory footprints. I have seen definitive proof that these two assertions are not true, and shared my experience.