OMG: QuickOffice 7.0 (view native Office file) is OUT!

[aaronchow]

QuickOffice 7.0 Premier is out, and you can download it at PalmGear (http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?prodID=1276).

The following is its description
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quickoffice Premier allows Palm OS handheld users direct access to native Microsoft® Word, Excel, and PowerPoint email attachments and native office files saved to removable memory expansion cards.

Quickoffice Premier works on any device using Palm OS 3.5 or later, including all of the Palm Powered smartphones . The total memory footprint of the latest Quickoffice Premier requires less space than the leading competitor's applications lacking native support. Quickoffice Premier has been designed to deliver snappy performance, quickly opening native Office 97 and later format files with high fidelity even on smartphones or organizers using older Dragonball processors.

The benefits of native file support include:

- Enabling access to any Office file on an expansion card. For example, you can back up you¿re My Documents to an SD card put it in your Palm and open any of them
- Seamlessly exchanging files between a Palm, PocketPC, Macintosh, or Windows PC, whether wirelessly or when transferred via removable expansion storage media
- Opening Word, Excel, and PowerPoint email attachments (with Snappermail)
- Creating or editing e-mail attachments in Quickword so that any recipient can open
- Cross compatibility directly with laptops and other (PPC) handhelds (IR/BT)
- Additionally, the Premier edition of Quickword enables users to view, edit, save, and create files fully compatible with Word 97, 2000, or XP right on the device.

Quickoffice Premier supports opening native Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files from all removable media types including Memory Stick used by Sony and MultiMediaCard and Secure Digital formats used in Palm, Kyocera, and other devices. High capacity removable media allows users to keep all of their important files with them, and accessory removable media card readers enable users to quickly backup hundreds of files for handheld access. The native file access provided by Quickoffice Premier antiquates past methods requiring handheld device users to rely upon translation of each individual file on the PC before installing to a handheld device

[cbulock]

This really works great. It runs pretty fast on my NX too. I thought the conversion process might take a while but I loaded up a few files that were a couple pages long with a lot of formating and it took less than a second to load each. But all of the formatting is lost if you try to edit a file. But this still works great for viewing e-mail attachments and sending unformatted files to PC users through e-mail. Now we can finally put another PPC vs Palm fight to rest.

[jovy]

I use quicksheet for quite some time. And it's indeed a very usefull utility which can sync with excel very easily. I recently upgrade to quickofficepro 6.2. Unfortunately, it doesn't support hires not to mention hires+. I'm expecting they'll come out one soon. In version 5.x it does support 240x320 on Handera330. May be this one doest what it says. But how about the upgrading price?

[aaronchow]

QuickSheet does support HiRes+ (320x480) with different zoom level.

[pusfarm]

I was able to get a modified native Word doc back on the memory stick [though the Quickword file looked vert little like the original], but the Quicksheet file I modified saved as a .pdb file.  Maybe I just did something wrong....  I got really excited about this when I saw it, but after actually trying it I won't be rushing out to buy it.

[jovy]

Originally posted by aaronchow
QuickSheet does support HiRes+ (320x480) with different zoom level.

I was wrong about the qsheet. It does support hires+. What I meant was that it only support 2 kinds or fonts nor does it support rotate funciton like it did on Handera. I like to see more columns/rows in a single screen.

[volcanopele]

I am considering purchasing QuickOffice because of this update. I use Wordsmith and will likely continue to use it, but I am interested in QuickSheet and Quickpoint. However, from the posts here so far, it doesn't look like the native file support is all it is cracked up to be.

Jason

[mdharris]

Could I get some verification on a few things.....

1) Is SnapperMail the only email client for the Palm OS that will work with QuickOffice?

2) You can view and edit in native format, does it save in the native format as well? If I have a .doc in memory card and open it, update and save is it still .doc?

3) I saw above that when you edit in native format all the formating is messed up, is this true?

4) Is there a desktop app that is needed or comes with QuickOffice?

[cbulock]

Originally posted by mdharris
Could I get some verification on a few things.....

1) Is SnapperMail the only email client for the Palm OS that will work with QuickOffice?

2) You can view and edit in native format, does it save in the native format as well? If I have a .doc in memory card and open it, update and save is it still .doc?

3) I saw above that when you edit in native format all the formating is messed up, is this true?

4) Is there a desktop app that is needed or comes with QuickOffice?

I'm not sure about question #1, but for #2, yes you can save i .doc (Word) format, and to answer question #3, it does take out the formatting when saving in .doc (Word). As for #4, there is a desktop app for Quickoffice that syncs the documents to your computer, but it's not needed, I just used MSImport and put the .doc files in /PALM/Programs/Quickoffice.

[ballistic]

All this sounds nice as a user who bought QuickOffice 5.6 in April '02 and then upgraded to QuickOffice Pro 6.0 when I got my NX in Nov '02. I think it is the best MS Office compatible suit available on any PDA OS.

I am getting sick of shelling out $20 every time I want to upgrade (now twice in less than 1 year!). This will put the cost of the most recent version of QuickOffice to $70 over the course of 11 months.

I don't mind paying top dollar for software with as many features as QuickOffice, but they need to offer a better upgrade plan for loyal users.

[jsp91470]

I tried it and almost immediately deleted it. One claim that has been made about QuickOffice is that it is smaller than "The leading competitor's application." By this I presume they mean WordSmith and Docs to Go. I don't use Docs to Go, but for WordSmith at least the statement is not really true. It is true that the base application is smaller for QuickWord. However, QuickWord needs a separate application (FontBucket) to display TrueType fonts. WordSmith has font support built in. Here's how it is as far as I can tell:

WordSmith

Base app = 548k

Optional:
Arial Font = 61k
Courier Font = 51k
Plain Font = 15k
Times Roman Font = 57k
Verdana Font = 69k
FineType Manager = 111k
Total = 912k

QuickWord

Base App = 495k

FontBucket = 945k
Total = 1440k

[Vidge]

I purchased the upgrade to QO 7, sight unseen. I will still use Wordsmith but the native support, albeit not quite up to snuff yet, is worth the $20 IMHO.

I will need to clean out some more flash, however. The programs are larger than 6.2 was and so won't fit completely in my flash right now.

[UI018397]

So where do you put my .doc files ??
When I create a new file, it got saved
in /PALM/PROGRAMS/QuickOffice
But when I move a MSWord DOC file into
that directory (using MSImport), QuickWord doesn't pick it up.

[rob_squared]

I really like the idea of this software, but I just don't need something this useful at the moment.

[rhart00]

Originally posted by UI018397
So where do you put my .doc files ??
When I create a new file, it got saved
in /PALM/PROGRAMS/QuickOffice
But when I move a MSWord DOC file into
that directory (using MSImport), QuickWord doesn't pick it up.

I think you have to use QuickOffice desktop to move it to your clie. That is the only way I was able to get them to work.

[cbulock]

Originally posted by UI018397
So where do you put my .doc files ??
When I create a new file, it got saved
in /PALM/PROGRAMS/QuickOffice
But when I move a MSWord DOC file into
that directory (using MSImport), QuickWord doesn't pick it up.

I've used MSImport and it did work. On the bottom toolbar, the button the the very right filters what kind of documents are shown, make sure you choose the MSWord icon insted of the other three.

[clieZilla2]

there doesn't seem to be zoom in quicksheet 7 (is there?) i can't get it to shrink down nicely like docs2go and or tinysheet - i want to see as many cells as possible on the screen at one time...

[mrfrodo1]

When you edit a Word or Excel file on the Clie, does it save it as a.pdb or in the native format?

[Alistar]

I noticed that when I installed the program I had it set up for Office 2000 files and it would not natively open Office 95 files for me. I would have to convert them on my desktop and then put them back on the memory stick.

[hansschmucker]

The last time I tried QOffice (v3 at that time, I believe), it crashed my PalmDesktop, wouldn't allow me to sync anymore, and had nested itself so deeply in Windows that I was unable to remove it (tried Uninstall + Delete Files + Remove own RegKeys + Remove RegKeys in P.D. + looked for filename entries in Win/PD dir + looked for "QOffice", "QSheet" and so on entris).

Uninstalling PalmDesktop wouldn't help either. Had to reinstall Windows.

And no, I won't give it another go. I like programs that arrive as a zip/rar file, stay in the directory I extract them to, have all the DLLs needed in their folder and create only a path entry in the Registry, while storing their settings in CFG/INI files in their directory.

__I__ want to be in control of my PC, not some shareware I accidently installed.

[hansschmucker]

Also it doesn't include native OO/SO support, which makes it pretty much useless for me (although reading OO files is REALLY simple: Basically, they are ZIP files that include an XML file + resource files like JPEG or PNG...)

[nlode]

I would upgrade if they had fixed the hi-res font thing. In my N760 I could get a really small font in Quicksheet (just like I do in Docs2go now in my NX).
But the OS5 version only supports 2 font sizes and they are way too big. I will wait until people say this has been solved.

[volcanopele]

Originally posted by mrfrodo1
When you edit a Word or Excel file on the Clie, does it save it as a.pdb or in the native format? I don't use QuickWord, but QuickSheet saves edited native excel files as .pdb on the card.

Jason

[kss55442]

I have to agree with jsp91470 about the footprint of the suite. I started with 3 MB of free RAM. I installed all of the options (including spell checker and thesaurus). After the 1st hotsync I was left with 1.1 MB of free RAM. I then used MSImport to move one each of Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents to the MS.

For Excel, any text boxes are stripped out, and I think all cell formating although I didn't spend time looking very closely. I thought it took a long time to open the 47K Excel document.

For Word, any graphics are stripped out as was some table formatting. The 106K word document opened surprisingly fast.

For Powerpoint, I ended up with what looked like an outline of the document, no graphics. In the slide view, all I got was blank boxes with the slide number.  The Powerpoint document was 1.5 MB in size. I noticed after closing Quickpoint, that my available RAM had gone down to 680K. I looked thru the files in RAM and couldn't find anything that looked suspicious. Having seen enough, I deleted all QuickOffice files and my free RAM returned to 3 MB.

[cbulock]

Originally posted by volcanopele
I don't use QuickWord, but QuickSheet saves edited native excel files as .pdb on the card.

Jason

I haven't tried Quicksheet, but Quickword saves in the native .doc format.

[Wayne]

3 reasons why i pick docs to go5 over qo7

it doesnt support install to card function, so lets say if you dont have 3 mb free in ram, you cant install a 3mb sized powerpoint file.. you cant even export the file out of the conduit either.. so at this point theres no way that you can install to an expansion card

docs to go supports pdf files, quickword doesnt..

everytime a native doc is edited, it saves as a new file, it makes it very confusing and frustrating when you have a LOT of these files. the renaming system is badly designed too, it only adds a number behind the original name...

[Unregistered]

has anybody been able to have qsheet shrink down the font size in order to se as many colums as possible?

thanks

[mcompeau]

To the user who doesn't seem to be able to get ZoomView to work in Quicksheet:

INSTALL FontBucket option. This is described all over the website and in the README.

<sigh>

[nlode]

Mcompeau,

Thanks for replying. I installed the Font Bucket option, but this seems to work only for Quickword. I could not get the small fonts in Quicksheet. Any ideas why? I have a Clie NX-70 and I chose the Palm OS5 option when installing.
I tried locating both the help files and the README but they weren´t copied to my hard disk during installation.

[mcompeau]

Reinstall the entire Premier suite from a new download = i have NO idea what happened, but I can tell you your experience is quite unusual and we have no other similar complaints. Reinstall being careful to select the FontBucket option and the OS5 fonts for installation.

I guess before that, you should go into Quicksheet font preferences (find on menu in sheet view) and ensure Use Fontbucket is checked.

You may even wish to use FontConvertor on the PC to make a NEW font family set (be sure Preferences in FontConvertor app is set to make OS5 fonts) to use on the device: choose a different NEW font like Century Schoolbook or something and make 4-6 sizes from smallest available to largest for installing to your device.

retry... you should really find joy with one of these techniques.

[nlode]

Originally posted by mcompeau
Reinstall the entire Premier suite from a new download = i have NO idea what happened, but I can tell you your experience is quite unusual and we have no other similar complaints. Reinstall being careful to select the FontBucket option and the OS5 fonts for installation.

I guess before that, you should go into Quicksheet font preferences (find on menu in sheet view) and ensure Use Fontbucket is checked.&nbsp;


Sorry if I wasn´t totally clear, but I am using Quicksheet version 6.2.3, not Premier. When I go into Quicksheet preferences there is no FontBucket option, only in Quickword.

Should I upgrade to Premier to get it to work?

[zzv347]

<B>Reset your clie in one easy step</B>

1) Install Quickword Premier 7.0.31
2) Launch it
3) Open a document
4) Hide the silk-screen
5) Choose Options....About Quickword

One reset NX-70V...

Is this a feature?

[mcompeau]

OH!!! :-)

Well, no WONDER!!
You have two choices, depending on your needs and pocketbook. ;)

You can purchase the upgrade to Quickoffice Premier from either Quickoffice (std) or Quickoffice Pro at a discount, OR...

You can wait for version 7.0 of your current QO suite to be released with the all new Quicksheet UI and hires+ support and depending on when you bought, you'll get that update for free (within one year of purchase).

:-)

[mcompeau]

Yes,
That Clie reset feature was just dropped in at teh last minute. :)
Ok, ok, ok---just kidding.
we're working on those silly high res soft grafitti foibles now also.

:P

Mike

[Manical]

I cannot get quicksheet to read or find any native Xcel files on the MS.
How do I do that? I tap on the memory icon. nothign happens

[mcompeau]

You have to tap on the wee little Quicksheet icon at the lower right of the screen (far right of file list toolbar) and then tap on the Excel icon that pops up. That will reveal excel files on the card.
(IF you are running Quickoffice Premier)

[nlode]

Originally posted by mcompeau
OH!!! :-)

Well, no WONDER!!
You have two choices, depending on your needs and pocketbook. ;)

You can purchase the upgrade to Quickoffice Premier from either Quickoffice (std) or Quickoffice Pro at a discount, OR...

You can wait for version 7.0 of your current QO suite to be released with the all new Quicksheet UI and hires+ support and depending on when you bought, you'll get that update for free (within one year of purchase).

:-)

Thanks for clarifying. I will wait for the QO 7.0 release, since I bought the 6.0 version in June of 2002.

&nbsp;:)

[wellsjs]

I would be interested in a head-to-head comparison of QuickOffice 7.0 and Docs To Go Pro 5.004. Does anyone know if an article exists on this or if you have the time and inclination to do so?

Both apps are quite pricy and I am vested in Docs To Go. It would take a "killer app" like functionality for me to justify "throwing out the baby with the bath water." :eek:

[mcompeau]

Download a demo of Quickoffice Premier and try it out. no charge. :)

I will say that the 'vesting' is perhaps best suited to folks who already use Quickoffice, as we are the one's who provide free updates for a year, and DxTG users always, always, always pay from ~$29 to get latest versions when released...(I know, I have to buy them) whereas folks like 'nlode' who bought Quickoffice v6 a year ago will get Quickoffice v7 free.

THAT's being vested. (well, to me)

Mike

[DanT]

mcompeau, I too purchased QO 6.0 on 7/02 and am looking forward to seeing the QO 7.0. Thanks for the free upgrade offer. I had QS since 9/00 and I've been happy with it since.

At one time I purchased DTG 4.001 (w/o trying it first, big mistake) and couldn't make DataVizMail to open Excel, Word, Powerpoint attachments. Their support couldn't help me either so I ditched the app and went back to QO. I might give QO premier a try. How much is the upgrade cost from QO 6.0 standard to QO Premier?

[mcompeau]

QuickXXXXX (indiv product) to Premier = $39.95
Quickoffice to QOPremier = $29.95
Quickoffice Pro to Premier = $19.95

These prices should be working at our store online now.