Put word processing and spreadsheet files in your Palm

by Michael Bray   A friend of mine who owns a TRGpro was tinkering with my Handspring Visor when I asked him if he’d tried Documents To Go, a software package that lets you view Word and Excel documents on your handheld.

"Palms can’t do that," he said.

"Apparently, they can," I replied.

Documents To Go, a DataViz software package, shrinks spreadsheets and word processing documents into a format your Palm OS can handle. It includes a spreadsheet viewer, called SheetView, and two word processing viewers, called WordView and WordView Plus.

Documents To Go is perfect if you need to keep spreadsheets on hand or want to take along work-related reading but don’t want to pack a laptop.

Consider Documents To Go if you need to retain formatting in the documents you want to review or you need to carry spreadsheets on your handheld. If you want to load your documents onto your Palm and edit the documents, DataViz has recently released a professional version of Documents to Go that lets you do just that.

How does it work?

Documents To Go creates an icon on your desktop so you can drag and drop documents onto the icon for automatic file conversion. The program allows you to choose either the WordView format or the standard .doc format for word processing documents. Spreadsheets are automatically converted to a SheetView format.

Then, the next time you sync, the Documents To Go files are added to your handheld. Converted documents shrink to approximately one third of the size of the unformatted version.

I was able to convert a 186K Word document into a WordView file of 71K, complete with formatting, and a .doc file of 34K without formatting. The WordView format also allows you to add up to 256 bookmarks.

When dealing with spreadsheets, Documents To Go’s reduction wasn’t as impressive. A 182K spreadsheet reduced to a 105K SheetView format. I was able to see nine rows and four very condensed columns. When you click on a column, it will allow you to read its contents up to 26 characters, or by clicking on a Cell Details button, you can read the full contents.

You can download a two-week demo from the DataViz site, www.dataviz.com, where the software package sells for $30 ($50 for the professional version that enables you to edit documents).

Michael Bray, ABR, CSP, eCertified, (bray@elpasotx.com) is president of the Greater El Paso Association of Realtors® and a member of the TAR Technology Task Force.

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