Can you remember ever really wanting something so bad that every time you passed the store you just had to stop and look? Something that you scrimped and saved for and saved for and only when it seemed that you would never save enough to buy it, you finally reached the magic amount and headed off to make it yours? And can you remember getting it back home and finding out that it wasn't nearly as cool as you thought it would be when it was all just a dream?

If this is something you have gone through, you will know right off my experience with the new Documents To Go from DataViz. Ever since I picked up my first handheld device, I have searched for a program that would allow me to carry documents created in Microsoft Word on my device and let me make changes to those documents on the road or at a client site. After experimenting with the multitude of document editors on the market and determining that none of them provided the functionality I needed (there are many document editors that allow for the manipulation of text files on handhelds, but none of them retain the formatting of the original Word document), I was prepared to abandon hope and resign myself to a lifetime lugging around a laptop.

Then an enhanced version of Documents To Go came along, promising much of the functionality I longed for and I rushed out to get a copy. Now for some time, the good folks at DataViz have provided a viewer for the Palm that allows users to look at Word files on their device while keeping the original formatting. Of course the missing piece that would take this from the category of good programs to that of great programs was the elusive editing function. So as I installed the new application, it seemed as though the stars were finally in alignment.

Installation is a Breeze

Getting the program up and running proved surprisingly simple. An auto-installation process takes Documents To Go from the CD-ROM to the desktop. From there, a pop-up window provides the interface between the desktop and the handheld device for documents that are designated to be transferred (the software accommodates both Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel files). Adding files to this window establishes a conduit that will synchronizes the files, just like your contact list and date book are synchronized. This means that if you change the file on your desktop, the changes are reflected on your device after the next hotsync and vice versa (if both the version on the desktop and the Palm are changed, the software makes copies of both files letting you choose which one to delete).

Under Rigorous Testing, it Proves Robust

I put Documents To Go through its paces using as eclectic a selection of files as I could find on my desktop. All told these included as nasty a combination of tables, images, bulleted and numbered lists, different fonts and font sizes and text formatting as was possible. Admittedly, the average user probably won't throw as many curve balls at the program as I did during this test, but in my mind what separates truly great applications from the dross is whether they hold up when you really need them.

For the most part, Documents To Go proved surprisingly robust. Starting with a simple letter agreement I opened up the file on my handheld to see that the numbered paragraphs remained properly indented and spaced. Adding new paragraphs also proved quite easy (although the paragraphs do not renumber themselves automatically) and once synchronized with the desktop, showed up in Microsoft Word just as if they had been written there originally. Changing the numbers to bullets made no difference, although I couldn't figure out any other way to add a new paragraph on the Palm and have the bullet show up other than copying and pasting a bullet from somewhere else (okay, a little nitpicky but I use bullets enough in my documents that it caught my attention).

Tables are Creatively Rendered

Next on my list was something with tables. Given the relative width of the Palm screen compared to a regular monitor, I was quite interested in whether tables would bring the software to its knees. Interestingly enough, a rather creative method for displaying tables makes it possible for even quite text intensive tables to render in a usable format. Rather than try to stuff the entire table into the width of the Palm display, each cell is allocated the full screen width and a set of nav tools pops up to enable you to move from cell to cell. I found it extremely easy to edit the contents of the table when there was a change I knew I wanted to make, although it was somewhat cumbersome to simply scan through the entire document since only a portion of a table appear at any one time.

Real Strength is Display and Editing Formatted Text

One clear strength of this program is displaying and editing formatted text. If I sat down with the goal of coming up with more combinations of bold, italics and underlines I don't think I could have tried more scenarios. On the device, text formatted on the desktop was displayed perfectly. The same was true for text formatted on the device and synchronized back to the desktop. Even more impressive was the program's ability to deal with special characters such as greek letters and symbols. This is something that I am just not used to from other applications so it definitely stands out in this one (subscripts and superscipts did not render properly but that is pretty minor given all the things that were handled with well).

This is not Word. There are Significant Limitations.

Some limitations start to creep in when you take formatting one step further by changing font sizes and sets. Currently, Documents To Go only supports two font sizes - large and small. This means that if you transfer a document with different sized fonts to your handheld, any fonts larger than 14 point are converted to "large" (a 16 point font) while those smaller than 14 point are converted to "small" (a 12 point font). If the document is sent back to the desktop, the resulting Word file only has these two font sizes, erasing all the font size formatting from the original. A similar effect occurs when using different font sets. The software only supports Times New Roman for small fonts and Arial for large fonts. If a Microsoft Word document using any other font is synchronized to the device and then back to the desktop, the fonts originally used disappear.

Keyboard Response is Slow Going

As a bit of an aside here, I was using the application primarily with the Palm Portable Keyboard since, after all if I am going to edit Word documents on the road, I really don't want to do it with the stylus. Unfortunately, text entered using the keyboard has a very noticeable delay between when it is typed and when it appears on the screen. For small changes this isn't really a big deal, but if I was looking to add more than a sentence or two of text to files on a regular basis it would certainly become a much more significant issue. Given the proliferation of keyboards for the Palm and their growing use in note-taking and such, this seems to be an area that the developer needed to give some more thought to.

Synchronizing Changes Both Ways is Frustrating

With all the files being transferred back and forth, I will say I was impressed with the lack of complications I experienced. However, I did have one extremely frustrating experience that I will attribute in part to "pilot error", although I don't think I was wholly at fault. The situation occurred at a point where the desktop file and the handheld file contained changes. As mentioned before, the way the software deals with this is making copies of both files on each device. While this worked as intended, I will say I had nothing but trouble thereafter trying to get things set up properly again. I spent no less than a half an hour tracking down the source of errors in the hotsync log and deleting duplicate files before finally deleting all the files on the handheld and starting from scratch. This is an instance where a creative application of the Compare Documents feature in Word could have made the difference.

Running into a Brick Wall: Working with Graphics

The last document I tried to synchronize with Documents To Go was a research paper that had a few images embedded in it. Documents to Go did not deal with these well. When the file is transferred to the device, the software strips out the images and replaces them with an "[image]" placeholder. This is not a big deal since rendering them would be very complicated. What really irked me, however, was that all of the images are removed from the file when it is synchronized back to the desktop, leaving only the placeholder. This unwelcome suprise means that you cannot edit and synchronize any files that contain graphics without laboriously replacing the graphics on the desktop each time you make a change on the handheld. This is completely impossible. Now, I imagine that it isn't easy to work around this or someone would be doing it, but shouldn't it be possible to combine the images from the original file with the changes from the new file and output that? This also could be done using the Compare Documents feature in Word.

You may not think you work with graphics very often, but think about documents with a logo embedded, or a chart.

The Last Straw: There's No Way to Print

My biggest beef of all though is the apparent lack of support for any kind of printing capability. While some of the other shortfalls can be dealt with, what I really want this software to let me do is not carry my laptop at all, but instead edit simple documents and print them out at that location. Instead, all I am left with is software that I need to synchronize with my laptop anyway before I can print, meaning I may as well just do it on the laptop to start with. To me, this inability was fatal.

The Final Analysis

While overall I was intrigued with the functionality of Documents To Go, I couldn't help but be left wanting. For very basic use (making small edits to standard documents or creating short files on the road) this could be a valuable addition to anyone's handheld, but for any kind of advanced use, it really doesn't hold up. If the folks at DataViz really want to take this application to the next level I think the need to address the lack of support for printing, provide better integration with the Palm Portable Keyboard and offer support for form fields. I can think of a number of laptop documents I could totally replace with my Palm if these functions existed, but currently I don't use the program for much more than a case study in how far Palm software has come - and how far it has yet to go.

Pros

• Easy installation
• Intuitive interface
• Retains most Microsoft Word formatting
• Accommodates documents with tables

Cons

• Deletes images and converts all fonts to one of two sizes
• Only supports one font style
• Will not allow documents with form fields
• Cannot print documents

Stars

This was a tough product to rate because Documents to Go is a fantastic product; certainly a 4 star, and maybe even a 5 star product as a document viewer for Word and Excel files. The new version has all that functionality plus the ability to edit files. In some respects, that should lead to an even higher rating.

However, since the product is now billed as a way to edit Word and Excel files on a PDA, I am rating it on that basis. While it is still a fantastic viewer, it has some serious shortcomings as an editor. The end result: I rate this 3.5 stars and I can't wait for the next version.

Reviewer's Note: As mentioned earlier, Documents To Go also includes the capability to synchronize Microsoft Excel files. While this is good functionality, it is something that has already been done better by programs such as Quicksheet and TinySheet. Most frustrating was the inability to create formulas on the Palm. For those that can't envision doing anything beyond editing numbers in a pre-existing sheet this may do the job, but while I don't want to have to create a spreadsheet from scratch on the Palm, being able to do some basic functions on the fly is clearly a much better option.

All that said, the exciting part of Documents To Go is not how it deals with Excel, but with Word. In that respect, the Excel conduit is kind of a freebie. Either the $49.95 is worth the price to work with Word files (in which case buy it), or it is not (in which case don't). If working with Excel files is important, look to Quicksheet from Cutting Edge Software.

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