Why will tomorrow's lawyers all start their first job as Palm addicts? Soon, the most obvious contributing factor may be the ability to view documents on a Palm Pilot. Before you hop on the bandwagon and download a viewer to see for yourself, be aware: it's possible to have a pretty awful experience trying to read stuff off a Palm. Scroll on for some observations and recommendations to sweeten your document-viewing experience.

In my law school, the use of Palm Pilots has increased thirty-fold in the last six months. I recently attended a meeting with five other law students; when someone mentioned a date for the next meeting, four of the six of us pulled out Palm Pilots to check our availability. The school administration is currently running a pilot program (no pun intended) in the summer Professional Responsibility class; each of the twelve students has been given a IIIx and GoType keyboard in an effort to determine the usefulness of Palms in coordinating student-teacher-school calendars and managing handouts.

Student uses of their Palms often center on one or two of their favorite functions. While AvantGo channels for news and stocks are very popular, the Address Book also seems to very commonly used. (One faculty member I work for currently has well over eight thousand contacts in his Vx.) The chimes of Date Book alarms between classes is tangible evidence that that program is also well liked by those who have experimented with it.

However, to this point, no one "killer-app" seems to have seduced everyone. You can talk to ten different students and get twelve different reasons for purchasing a palm top. But my prediction is that will change very soon, with the advent of document viewers.

During finals this year, I converted and installed on my Palm all of my class outlines, the Federal Rules of Evidence, the Copyright Act, and the Trademark Act. Then, in between classes, before (sometimes during) meetings, and while on long car/plane rides, I studied and even worked on my study materials. This proved to be such an addictive feature; I soon had several novels and movie scripts on my Palm IIIx as well.

Those who are beginning to feel the tuggings of a similar addiction may be interested in hearing about my experiences with some of the most common viewers. My initial fears had been that the documents would take up too much room, be too hard to view, wouldn't convert well, and wouldn't be widely available. All of these fears proved to be unfounded. Most documents are very small, averaging less then 30k (one rule of thumb seems to be that one page in Word can be compressed to 1k of memory, but this varies widely). Most of the DOC viewers I looked at had options to easily change your viewing font to taste. I was able to locate a number of simple document converters that easily handled my Word documents (though the converters are less common for WordPerfect documents); I was able to convert virtually any of my desktop documents into the Palm DOC format, often with only two mouse clicks. Finally, sites such as www.memoware.com offer as many as four thousand documents, including books, reference materials, and how-to articles.

But before you rush out and begin to download or convert documents, carefully consider your document viewer.

I looked at eight of the most common available on the Net. All were shareware, requiring registration for regular use; freeware viewers are very rare. All utilize or are capable of viewing the most common document format for the Palm: DOC. While the different viewers boasted a vast variety of features (not the least of which being the ability to edit documents on your Palm), I looked at all eight through the eyes of a law student: How practical? How easy to use? How cheap? And so on.

Key factors I evaluated in the viewers were: the ability to navigate the document (using scroll bars, buttons, or bookmarks); the accessibility of features from the interface (e.g., Cluttered interface? Important tools available quickly?); and the ease of learning (e.g., Cryptic commands? Dependence on a manual?).

I will describe all eight, and then give my votes for the best edit-capable viewer and the best viewer overall. AportisDoc

	AportisDoc Mobile

This viewer-only product calls itself the "industry standard for publishing, sharing, and exchanging electronic text documents of any size." It comes in three versions, ranging from a stripped-down but freeware Reader to the Professional Edition with built-in ability to convert HTML and Word documents. I didn't look at the Professional Edition; at $39.95, I don't think many law students will, particularly when there are other good options available for less. The freeware Reader allows you to access only up to seven documents at a time. Navigability is weak: you can't add-only read-bookmarks; scrolling is limited to screen taps, the Palm rocker button, and a crude feature that lets you jump to different locations as percentages (i.e., entering 50% takes you to the half-point). The interface is simple and easy to learn (but not use!). See www.aportis.com for more info and downloads.

iSilo is one of those feature-packed viewers that seems easy to love but hard to like. The freeware version-iSilo Free-is relatively simple; it looks a lot like the AportisDoc Reader, but the navigability tools are somewhat better: you can jump to a specific page, rather than only a percentage. The full iSilo has a myriad of fun features: italics, bolding, internal hyperlinks, etc.; the creators of iSilo use a proprietary format to access these features. (There is a ton of neat stuff available in the iSilo format; however, little of it will do much for a law student's productivity.) I did like the navigability of the interface: you can make quick marks; you can add bookmarks; and you can even jump between marks with a browser-like forward/backward button. The on-screen interface is simple and fairly obvious. iSilo's unique features are easy to learn; we all know what a hyperlink is. Finally, iSilo is cheap, too: $12.50. All in all, a decent, cheap viewer. (For more info on iSilo, see www.isilo.com.)

Panaread has two neat features that should be in every reader. The first is the ability to read e-mails, in addition to text files and DOCs. I would have liked this feature much more if I could have organized the e-mails into categories. The second feature is the ability to have text scroll automatically at a customizable speed, so you don't have to keep tapping. Furthermore, the text is viewable in a normal, full screen; in a small window with enlarged text; or in a combination of both. Both of these features are handy, but not as valuable to law students as to people who have trouble reading small type or those who do a lot of straightforward reading (i.e., books), as opposed to the start-and-stop studying law students do. One of the best practical features of Panaread is the fact that you can enable the hard keys (i.e., the buttons on your Palm) to perform some of the major functions of the viewer (e.g., change reading speed, viewing style, etc.). This made for a steeper learning curve than for some viewers, but also remarkable control. Finally, Panaread was one of the only two readers I used that crashed my Palm. I'm not sure if this is a general problem, or if Panaread was just allergic to my Palm IIIx, but it wasn't very nice. For more info, see www.panaread.com.

	TealDoc

TealDoc reminded me a little of iSilo: Lots of content available in the proprietary TealDoc format, some nifty gadgets, and a polished format. TealDoc didn't have the font options of iSilo (i.e., italics, bolding, etc.), and it's not as affordable, at $16.95; but you do get features like automatic scrolling. The on-screen interface was more creative from most, with the ability to swap control panels depending on if you were just reading or if you were hunting for something; forward/backward buttons with the Find function; and quick access to the font size. More than iSilo, TealDoc had some features a law student would like when studying: better navigability when Finding; the ability to "Go Back" to a previous location; and auto-scroll when you need it. I was disappointed by the lack of utilization of the hard keys, though; Panaread spoiled me. For more info, see www.tealpoint.com.

Mobile LinkDoc was minutes away from being the favorite of this competition, but one mysterious flaw make me choke on the last bite. As a viewer, this program is terrific. Navigability is really good as a result of the ability to enable the hard keys to scroll by pages and lines (rather than limiting you to the rocker key). This is great when studying. Autoscroll allows hands-free viewing (but don't blink, as usual). The lack of millions of odd gadgets results in a practical, easy-to-learn interface and menus. One unique feature is the ability to create links between documents. I wasn't able to fully test this, and I'm not sure of a time when I've wished for this feature, but there it is. Best of all, registration was only $9.95 at the time of this writing, which makes it the cheapest full-feature reader in my list today. However, just as I was winding up my playing with LinkDoc, I found that when I opened a few of my test documents, I got garbled text. None of the other viewers had problems opening these documents, so caveat emptor: this viewer may have some problems reading some files. I wasn't able to test this fully or contact Mobile Generation Software to talk about the problem, so I'd be interested to hear if anyone debugs this fine viewer. For more info on LinkDoc, see www.mobilegeneration.com.

The final three viewers all incorporate the ability to edit or create documents. (Third-party software is usually needed to then convert documents between your desktop and Palm formats.) Up to now, few people have actually entered much text directly into their Palm, either in Memo Pad or Mail. Graffiti is okay for making a new Address entry, but scribbling anything over ten words gets to be work. Therefore, a word-processing viewer may seem a little pointless. However, the recent popularity of at least two Pilot keyboards-by Palm and Landware-may signal a big change ahead. With my recently purchased Landware keyboard, I was able to work on my Law Review comment and class outlines right up to exams. I am even writing part of this review on my Palm. In the ten minutes before a meeting, I can often pound out three or four e-mails, to be sent on my next HotSync. With uses like this, the puny 4k limit on Memo Pad text documents gets to be a burden, making "mini-word-processors" like TakeNote, QED, and SmartDoc much more interesting.

TakeNote gets to be my benchmark for edit-capable viewers; it's a good example of a program that does little wrong but doesn't spark your imagination too much at the same time. While it does cost forty bucks by itself, I was able to get it for free with the purchase of my LandWare keyboard; in addition, a thesaurus program-"WordSleuth"-came with the word processor, raising the value (if for no other reason than major geek points). Navigability was poor, compared to most viewers: you're limited to screen taps and the rocker button (even that obnoxious percentage-location feature is missing). However, if you've got a keyboard hooked up, the keyboard arrow keys will likely be your first choice for navigation anyway. Feature-wise, this program is much more well rounded than some of its peers: things like word count, thesaurus, and find-and-replace are fun to see on such a tiny screen (although this level of word-processing probably won't ever be done on a Palm Pilot). On the downside, few of its word-processing-like features are directly accessible from the interface, although again, almost all can be initiated with the Shortcut command; on the Landware keyboard, this was a simple matter of pressing one key combination. Mastering all these features did make for a steep learning curve, but at least you got some return for your time in the manual. For more info and downloads, see www.landware.com.

QED provided my first contact with mini-word-processors, and, well, it was a character-building experience. QED has the steepest learning curve of any viewer I used, and my initial affection for this "weird-processor" cannot overcome my frustration with the awkwardness of the cramped, icon-driven interface and obscure abbreviations for commands. QED often requires multiple taps for simple tasks such as opening documents. In addition, navigation-based as it was on tapping different areas of tiny icons-proved to be a tricky affair at times. At the prices I found for it-$19.95-I could think of better ways to go. For more info, see www.visionary2000.com/qed.

I'll say it up front: My favorite edit-capable document handler is SmartDoc, distributed by Cutting Edge Software. See www.cesinc.com. In terms of practical features, speed, and intuitiveness, this product had me sold from the first HotSync. SmartDoc doesn't really do anything amazing, but it passed all my practical, real-life tests with flying colors. The start-up menu lets you change major settings for individual documents with a single tap-e.g., whether that document will be backed up during HotSyncs

	SmartDoc

and whether the document is included when you use your Palm's Global Find (saving you tons of time during Global Find). In other viewers, changing these settings required opening each document individually, a real pain in the affidavit. SmartDoc has a lot of "cute" features, including automatic scrolling, ability to beam documents (although in my last test I got an error message when attempting this), and even the ability to download files from the Net if online with your Palm. The on-screen interface was a small but distinct cut above the other viewers: I had one-touch access to automatic scrolling, font-size, and document-protection. On the downside, all these shiny spots made the shadows look a little deeper: no option of utilizing the hard keys; no word count or thesaurus like TakeNote; and some obscure or pointless commands in the menus (For example, you can activate the Palm on-screen keyboard from a pull-down menu or a Shortcut command-but why would you do this when you can just tap the silkscreen button for the keyboard?) All in all, the $19.95 you pay for a legal version of SmartDoc gives you the best all-round viewer and mini-word-processor I've described for you today.

So, in conclusion, my recommendations for your document -viewing and -editing experience are simple: If you don't feel like editing documents and you're on a budget (remember: If you live like a lawyer now, you'll live like a law student later...) go with LinkDoc. If you have a little room left on your credit card and want something with more geek-power, check out iSilo or even SmartDoc. Finally, if you're really living large and you bought a keyboard, then SmartDoc is the smart way to go for your mini-word-processing experience. There you have it. Don't forget to download a good Word-to-DOC converter and Sun Tzu's The Art of War while you pick your viewer. Agree? Disagree? Got some comments about programs I didn't review? Please contact me at tcinkel@pepperdine.edu.

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