Quickoffice apps deliver data to PDAs

Quickoffice 5.6.2 from Cutting Edge Software provides unique tools for Palm OS handhelds for an increasingly important task: integrating enterprise data with handhelds. However, it is somewhat more difficult to use for basic chores than its primary competition and, in some cases, will be more expensive.

Quickoffice includes the Quickword word processing and Quicksheet spreadsheet applications, which can be synchronized with their Microsoft Office counterparts on the desktop. It also includes the Quickchart charting program but doesn't include a PowerPoint presentation viewer, as does its prime competition, DataViz Documents To Go (DTG). Also part of the suite is Quickoffice Desktop, a Windows program for managing files that you intend to synchronize with the handheld.

Like DTG, Quickoffice easily puts Palm-based handhelds on a par with Pocket PC-based PDAs and their scaled-down versions of Excel and Word. However, DTG is currently included free with many recently released Palm OS-based handhelds, while Quickoffice costs about $40, which is $30 less than DTG (if DTG weren't included with a Palm-based PDA).

Quickoffice's most unique and powerful feature--one that DTG and Pocket PC can't match--is its free application programming interface (API) for connecting Quicksheet to ODBC-compliant databases. We used a simple application written in Visual Basic--though the API also supports Java and C++--in which sales data entered in a Microsoft Access file was fed directly into Quicksheet via the synchronization process. The specific application we tested synched only in one direction--from Access to Quicksheet--but it is possible to perform two-way synchronization with Access. You need only run a small executable file on the desktop machine before synchronizing.

However, the way that Quickoffice manages files can be maddening. Quickoffice inserts a special menu in Microsoft Word and Excel that you must use to save and open files you intend to synchronize. This creates files in Quickoffice's proprietary format; these files are translated to Word or Excel format when opened in those applications. However, if you save files using standard Save and Open functions in Word or Excel rather than with the special Quickoffice menu commands, the files won't synchronize.

We found that having to use two different menus for saving and opening files is confusing, often resulting in two versions of the same file. The only way to save or open a document using a desktop app's standard Save and Open menus is to drag each file into the Quickoffice Desktop prior to synchronization; this lets Quickoffice create and link two separate files--one in Quickoffice format and one in MS Office format--which are synchronized whenever a HotSync is performed. Oddly, in Quickoffice this seemingly simpler method cannot be set as Quickoffice's default file synchronization method; whereas DTG does use such a method as its default.

Quickoffice's applications have simple, intuitive user interfaces that are laudably full-featured. Quickword can create bullets and change fonts, while DTG's word processor can't. However, Quickword can't display tables, as can DTG; instead, Quickword displays tables as simple text, with each cell of a table on a separate line. You can edit that text with Quickword, however, and the edited information is synchronized back into the table in the original document.

Quickoffice also lets you create simple charts easily; you select the "chart" function in Quicksheet and then highlight the cells you want to use in the chart. Quickchart then launches and lets you select from among five basic chart types, such as bar and line, and other basic format items, such as whether to display labels. However, charts can be viewed only on the handheld and will not synchronize with the desktop. It should also be noted that Quickoffice currently does not support the Macintosh platform.

If you need to link enterprise apps to handhelds, Quickoffice is an obvious choice, since it's currently the only handheld office suite that offers that capability. Since Quickoffice's applications are roughly equal in performance those included with Dataviz Documents To Go, you also can choose on the basis of price--if your Palm handhelds don't come with DTG, Quickoffice's comparatively low price makes it a strong value--if you don't mind a somewhat steeper learning curve.

David Haskin is a freelance journalist specializing in handheld, wireless and mobile technologies.