Related
I am a proud Xoom owner/user but when it comes to available office suites I feel very neglected. I started a thread over at the Xoom forum comparing some of the main features of three major (tablet optimized) office suites.
The official Asus Transformer website states that it will be shipped with the Polaris Suite. Has anyone tried it yet? I know it will be next to impossible to get the apk to run it on the Xoom so if anyone wants to add their experience on the Transformer? Here is the link to the PowerPoint presentation that I used to evaluate the compatibility.
Your help is really appreciated!
it doesn't work to bad.. everything displays apart from the line of symbol text and the the page numbers just show up as hash. The speed of the app is fine in fact is is almost instant.
logichoops said:
it doesn't work to bad.. everything displays apart from the line of symbol text and the the page numbers just show up as hash. The speed of the app is fine in fact is is almost instant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you mind taking a screenshot for me?
Screenshots:
http://db.tt/Ob5Memd
http://db.tt/GqUiZtH
Speed is very good
^ beat me to it!
logichoops said:
it doesn't work to bad.. everything displays apart from the line of symbol text and the the page numbers just show up as hash. The speed of the app is fine in fact is is almost instant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It has some functions that most other office apps don't have - insert table for example. Even better the table functionality is very feature rich meaning you can do things like merge cells.
I have had it crash on me, and when it did so, it lost all of the work I had done - it would be nice if they did a periodic save.
Speed in use is fine.
I'm comparing it to various paid for office apps I have had on the iPad, and it compares favourably so far.
A question is, is it better than Google docs?
I posted a comparison between (for now Word and PowerPoint) Office Suites in the Xoom forum. Bottom line is that none of the currently available apps should be considered perfect. Hopefully the competition coming up with all the Honeycomb tablets will spark a flood of well-developed apps.
I have found that the doc/xls files saved with polaris suite won't open with openoffice or libre office on my ubuntu 10.10 box, which is a shame, as I really like the functionality of it otherwise. In fact, I don't even think they opened with QuickOffice, which I installed next and, despite its more limited functionality, is reasonably good on my transformer!
lytnus said:
I have found that the doc/xls files saved with polaris suite won't open with openoffice or libre office on my ubuntu 10.10 box, which is a shame, as I really like the functionality of it otherwise. In fact, I don't even think they opened with QuickOffice, which I installed next and, despite its more limited functionality, is reasonably good on my transformer!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wonder if they open in Word. Such suite should have at least RTF. DOC/XLS are very bad choices especially since there are several very different versions of DOC/XLS formats out there.
Here's a youtube review of Polaris. This guy is awesome. Watch his reviews.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGSfL6XjcN8
popophobia said:
Here's a youtube review of Polaris. This guy is awesome. Watch his reviews.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGSfL6XjcN8
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I checked out his other videos and it made me want to test drive the Transformer so badly. Even my wife who leans towards iProducts was pretty impressed by its options!
Has anyone been able to get google docs integration work on on Polaris?
I can download a document from my google docs. However it will only save it locally and it won't upload it back to google docs. I also tried creating a new document and pushing it up to google docs and that also failed.
cd419 said:
Has anyone been able to get google docs integration work on on Polaris?
I can download a document from my google docs. However it will only save it locally and it won't upload it back to google docs. I also tried creating a new document and pushing it up to google docs and that also failed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have the Google Docs app installed, then within Polaris you can click-and-hold on a locally saved file, choose Send -> Docs and it will pass it to the Docs app for uploading.
But that just adds it to your Google docs, and doesn't overwrite and previous doc of the same name.
Damn I was really hoping for decent google docs support. I use google docs alot and not having read write acces is a pain. Does anyone know if Docs to go or quick office has read wirte google docs support and have tried on the xformer?
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App
Can you not use Google Docs via the web browser on the TF?
You can use the mobile docs site but it is very basic. The desktop site crashes the browser when I try to use it.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App
lytnus said:
I have found that the doc/xls files saved with polaris suite won't open with openoffice or libre office on my ubuntu 10.10 box, which is a shame, as I really like the functionality of it otherwise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The way LibreOffice doesn't open my Polaris file is clearly an LO bug: it crashes trying to do a division by 0.
I'm not allowed to post a URL on this forum but I can tell you that it is bug 40686 in the freedesktop.org bugzilla.
Your best bet is to get quickoffice and doc2go. Between polaris, quickoffice, and doc2go, you should be able to do everything you want to do on-the-go.
This topic has long since evolved in my comparison thread (see sig)
goodintentions said:
Your best bet is to get quickoffice and doc2go. Between polaris, quickoffice, and doc2go, you should be able to do everything you want to do on-the-go.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey everyone,
I've been looking closely at the Transformer and it looks like an excellent tablet. The only qualm I have is if I'm going to have it replace some of my other devices for frequent use, it needs to handle Google Docs (or in this case, I suspect the syncing with Polaris Office is the better way to go).
Could anyone tell me how the experience is with syncing between Google Docs? Most importantly, I'm hoping that it can handle relatively complex spreadsheets.
I was going to post an example of the complexity I'm talking about, but I guess I'm too much of a noob to do so yet If you do a Google search for "Epizephyrii Pathfinder Character Sheet" it'll be the first result.
Regular documents are of interest too, but I suspect if it can handle spreadsheets well it'll handle text docs just fine.
Alternatively, how is direct access to docs and spreadsheets on the Transformer? I have an Archos 101 at the moment and haven't been impressed with the lagginess that seems to haunt Google Docs on it.
Thanks!
Locri said:
The only qualm I have is if I'm going to have it replace some of my other devices for frequent use, it needs to handle Google Docs (or in this case, I suspect the syncing with Polaris Office is the better way to go).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd prefer using Google Docs directly - it's MUCH safer (Polaris Office doesn't auto save). Could someone tell if it's fast enough?
If you mean the Google docs website then I just tried it and it was basically unusable. Not sure why they don't have an app for it :S
Edit - just tried mobile site version and it was useable but really basic compared to the proper site
case0 said:
If you mean the Google docs website then I just tried it and it was basically unusable. Not sure why they don't have an app for it :S
Edit - just tried mobile site version and it was useable but really basic compared to the proper site
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats really bad news. Why was it unusable? Slow? Or problems with input?
Yeah, I would forget about using the Google Docs site, especially with those complex spreadsheets. I pulled it up on the stock browser and while it would display it, you couldn't really navigate or scroll around it.
I tried to log into to my Google Docs account through Polaris, but kept getting a log in error. Not sure if others are having this problem, but meant that I couldn't really test out that example spreadsheet.
However I do have two paid Office suites available (Docs to Go and Quick Office Pro HD) so I accessed the spreadsheet through those. Docs to Go struggled, in fact made the file read only since there were so many elements it couldn't display. Quick Office fared much better, it displayed the spreadsheet, I could navigate around it and enter text into the cells. Not sure how close it looks to the desktop version.
I would imagine that if a paid app like Docs to Go is struggling, then the free Polaris might also have some issues. At the moment Quick Office seems like your best bet.
You mean it's hard to navigate (touchpad/mouse and keyboard should help then) or doesn't work properly at all? I'm interested in the writing app more than spreadsheet (but simple spreadsheets must work too). Maybe it's better in some other browser? Firefox?
Magnesus said:
You mean it's hard to navigate (touchpad/mouse and keyboard should help then) or doesn't work properly at all? I'm interested in the writing app more than spreadsheet (but simple spreadsheets must work too). Maybe it's better in some other browser? Firefox?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found it hard to navigate because of lag, but text input didn't work for me either. Firefox displays websites in their mobile formats so couldn't test it on that browser.
Now that a few more people have the Transformer in their hands (lucky arses ), can anyone answer this question? How well does Polaris Office interact with Google Docs and especially spreadsheets?
I don't care so much that it doesn't auto-save, I can do that myself, but considering the poor showing of Google's Docs app, I'm hoping there will be something much better.
Thanks!
I have the Eee Pad Transformer and I have used the Polaris Office, however you can access the files and download them. I cannot seem to sync it back up though and so that means that the word doc has to be sent via gmail. Does anyone know what you are meant to do to get it to sync back up with Google Docs?
Polaris Office syncs very well with Dropbox... you open any Dropbox Doc or Spreadsheet, it opens, you make changes, close Polaris and Dropbox automatically uploads the doc with updated changes. Dropbox handles this very well. (I imagine the same is true for HD & QuickOffice)
However, Polaris's ability to edit Excel spreadsheets is very limited. I had been hoping to use this on the go, but in my few days of experimenting Polaris changes the format of cells and does not retain formulas, etc. For example, I have billing spreadsheet for work that need to update on the fly. I can update from the TF on Polaris, and access pretty quickly, view the spreadsheet fine. Dropbox uploads the edits just fine, but when I get back to the desktop I have lost formatting, the time and date formatted fields have changed to decimal numbers, date fields are no longer dates (as in 05/07/2011 changes to .40670). It is really more frustrating than useful, so for me it is not usable.
I'd love to hear more about others experiences with other Office apps.
I'm still experimenting with Google Docs... there is a new Google Docs app that I'm hoping will be my solution (although I haven't had a chance yet). I'll update in this thread when I do.
Edit: I also learned Polaris does not like .xlsx spreadsheets... saving as .xls 2003 format seems to work much better; although not fix the formatting problem
case0 said:
If you mean the Google docs website then I just tried it and it was basically unusable. Not sure why they don't have an app for it :S
Edit - just tried mobile site version and it was useable but really basic compared to the proper site
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dled one on the market made by Google...
But yes, it's very simplistic with no options. Not even bold or font change.
Also, with Polaris, is there a quick save option on the keyboard like ctrl+something? That can be an alternative to autosave.
And how come there is no spell checker?!
I finally got my Transformer yesterday and have done some quick informal testing on this issue (along with some testing already done by another forum member who helped me out outside of this thread).
The big takeaway is that while you can open documents from Google Docs, you can't sync them with Google Docs. Anything you modify has to be saved in an Office format and can only be saved locally not to the cloud. For the spreadsheet I was asking about it rendered okay, but I couldn't change any numbers relating to formulas without it sputtering out on me and some sheets it downloaded wrong and left me with a mess.
I'm interested in trying a combo of DropBox and Office, but for Google Docs it sucks.
I also tested Google Docs on various browsers to see how they all performed. The default Android browser rendered everything fine, but was dog slow. Dolphin HD was similarly pretty slow, although not as bad. Opera did a better job yet, but the top of the pack without a doubt ended up being Firefox! I had some problems with it constantly wanting to pop up the keyboard and editing things was a pain, but much less of a pain then the other browsers. For viewing only it was actually really good.
I still have hopes that Google will make some improvements with both the Android browser (why is it, again, that it can't just be a direct Chrome port? why are they bothering with the Chrome OS?), but at the moment there is no way that this could be my only portable device for lack of good Google Docs support alone. Or maybe some other online docs system will work better.
Locri said:
but the top of the pack without a doubt ended up being Firefox! I had some problems with it constantly wanting to pop up the keyboard and editing things was a pain, but much less of a pain then the other browsers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wonder how it will work with normal keyboard (keyboard dock or bluethooth/usb one).
but at the moment there is no way that this could be my only portable device for lack of good Google Docs support alone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The same here. And if Google Docs doesn't work other web application will have problems too. Judging by the SunSpider test the tablet should be more than capable of working with such web apps.
A quick test between Polaris and quickoffice. Polaris has a much better ui for viewing and editing docs. As mentioned Polaris only downloads from google docs. It does not save. Quickofficehas a lot more syncing features with docs, dropbox and more.
Edit : I also wanted to point out that quickoffice has a phone and tablet version. You have to buy them separately though. (Just like docs to go). It seems that quickoffice HD has been ported from the mobile version with only some basic tablet features added. This is the likely the reason the ui isn't as good as Polaris. I would hope they update it to be better in the future.
I'm struggling with this too. I do all my school work (uni assignments and document storage) on google docs and I often jump between workstations (home, work, and now the eee pad). Currently the eee pad is the only one I can't just start working then stop and change where I'm working.
I'm going to try the dropbox solution.
RonSykes said:
I'm struggling with this too. I do all my school work (uni assignments and document storage) on google docs and I often jump between workstations (home, work, and now the eee pad). Currently the eee pad is the only one I can't just start working then stop and change where I'm working.
I'm going to try the dropbox solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've found that Docs to Go works pretty well. In terms of Google docs integration, it doesn't auto-save, so you have to go File - Save. Unlike Polaris though, it re-saves to the cloud directly.
That means that yes, you could pick up and work on stuff anywhere you go now
Dan76 said:
Polaris Office syncs very well with Dropbox... you open any Dropbox Doc or Spreadsheet, it opens, you make changes, close Polaris and Dropbox automatically uploads the doc with updated changes. Dropbox handles this very well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cant get this to work. How do you do?
When i opnå docindropbox it open in polaris office, but when i save i get savede on the tablet not in dropbox
michaeltryl said:
I cant get this to work. How do you do?
When i opnå docindropbox it open in polaris office, but when i save i get savede on the tablet not in dropbox
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just re-tested it and there's no configuring necessary... it just works. You have dropbox installed, open dropbox and tap on the doc to open it, it will open in Polaris. Edit any way you like, the make sure you click "save" in Polaris on the upper left. Dropbox will then automatically upload the file. I tested and can verify that this works perfectly!
A caveat though, Polaris can only edit Word and Excel 2003 documents. So if you have newer versions on your computer, save it as 2003 first. Otherwise Polaris will crash; in my experience.
I hope that helps.
thanks i used office 2010 doc.it works perfekt with 2003.
What is the best word processor designed for Honeycomb thus far that gives many of the features that MS Word also gives, such as formatting options, spell check, ect.
I'm basically looking for the most complete world processor out there for Honeycomb.
Probably Polaris.. comes with the TF
Documents to GO has been my go-to app since the beginning.
It works flawlessly. Although Polaris looks a lot nicer.
Polaris looks the best but I last I tried I couldn't open a word or spreadsheet document created with it in openoffice or libreoffice (free MS office alternatives), which ruins it for me. I don't know whether they have updated or fixed this issue since I last checked..
Ohh, shoot, I haven't tried that yet. Hmm, I use openoffice on my laptop too, are you saving it in openoffice format or .doc?
I want to save them as .doc files so that I can easily switch between working on my PC with MS Word, and my TF with what ever word processor I end up using.
Have anybody tried Quickoffice Pro HD?
jwilliamf said:
Have anybody tried Quickoffice Pro HD?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wondering this as well. I want something as close as to Office as possible
Check out the link in my signature. Trust me, you are not the first one to ask this question. What is not in the review are the online programs like Google Docs and Microsoft Live Office. Both are pretty cool and the latter looks almost exactly like the real office programs!
What about the new thinkfree app?
http://tablified.com/business/thinkfree-mobile/
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk
This is a very neat UI! I just bought it and if I ever find time I will include it in my comparison. It definitely has a lot of potential although it has many shortcomings regarding formatting and TrueType interpretation. PowerPoint ("Show") seems to be affected in particular.
ayman07 said:
What about the new thinkfree app?
http://tablified.com/business/thinkfree-mobile/
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
funnycreature said:
This is a very neat UI! I just bought it and if I ever find time I will include it in my comparison. It definitely has a lot of potential although it has many shortcomings regarding formatting and TrueType interpretation. PowerPoint ("Show") seems to be affected in particular.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since you are the guru on this, please, tested and let us know how is it and what is your opinion.
I was looking at it last night and was close to buy the app, but I prefer for you to let us know what you think.
Thank you
This post is very helpful and seems related.
Also: no one has suggested just using Microsoft Word on your desktop/laptop via VPN. I know a couple of people like to do that.
My plan is to write documents using either the onboard application or Google Docs (depending on which app works better and if I am connected), then use something like TeamViewer or Logmein to do the nitty-gritty formatting.
Thank you for the compliment but unfortunately I don't have as much time as I used to I'll do me best though since I want to know myself! I'll update my comparison thread once I did it!
jwilliamf said:
Since you are the guru on this, please, tested and let us know how is it and what is your opinion.
I was looking at it last night and was close to buy the app, but I prefer for you to let us know what you think.
Thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried a few word processing programs as I've looked for something as good as MS Word or Open Office. So far, I've not found anything that can replace these programs. All of them lack certain key features - including google docs, polaris, quick office HD, documents 2 go. I haven't tried thinkoffice yet, but it doesn't look much better. I just now tried MS Live Office, but it wouldn't work on the tab - i got a page that said I needed to use MS Explorer or Firefox to access it. It looks like the most full featured option, but unless we can get past this browser limit, it doesn't matter on the TF.
Polaris office is the best so far, though I haven't tried to open the documents in open office, so I can't speak to that problem. I used QuickOffice HD up until the 3.2 update because copy/paste in polaris was broken.
help with polaris
I need help. I am a new tf owner and I can not get polaris to work. I have tried two google and one box accounts. When I go to set up the account I get an error message saying that it can not connect to the Web server. I was able to connect to one google account once then I added files to it and could no longer connect, same error message. I even tried creating a new box account and that did not work. Any help would be great
I've purchased an Asus Transformer to replace an iPad that I am trying to sell. There are certain things I like about the android system better, like having an actual filesystem where two distinct programs can work on one file. However, what has been bugging me lately is that I cannot seem to find a browser that handles webpages as gracefully as the iPad's Safari browser.
Examples:
lifehacker.com has a two pane set up and depending on where the mouse is when the scrollwheel is scrolled, that pane will scroll. In the iPad, this functionality is still preserved. In Android, this functionality is impossible. In fact, while scrolling down the main pane, the images get corrupted in the right pane.
verizonwireless.com, I was trying to buy accessories for my phone. On the iPad, choosing "filters" for the accessories such as "category, type, style, brand, color, price" is very responsive. On the android, it is dang near impossible.
I'd understand if these websites (the versions that are not optimized for tablets) didn't work on either android or iOS, but the iPad Safari browser is clearly superior in rendering these unoptimized websites.
I've tried numerous browsers, the stock, opera mobile and mini, dolphin mini, hd, and pad, skyfire. Each seems to have certain things they do well and other things they do poorly.
So, am I doing something wrong? What do you all think, especially if you've used the iPad Safari browser before? Will ICS bring any improvement?
Thanks
I think I read somewhere ICS has google chrome, so it should be awesome, try the maxthon browser, works pretty good for me, but I mostly use stock browser
Can't compare it with an ipad or the safari browser, but just tried verizonwireless and lifehacker and apart from the two-pane scrolling at lifehacker things seemed to work fine...
No corruption in images @ lifehacker and was also able to select filters at verizonwireless (this was with opera mobile, useragent windows/pc, and dolphin for pad, useragent ipad and windows/pc).
Indeed, the occasional page doesn't work properly or nicely on the transformer (or maybe pads in general) but it surely doesn't happen enough to bother me. ICS will probably improve browsing, dunno if the engine is changed that much though.
Have you tried Opera Mobile in DESKTOP mode, rather than the default TABLET mode?
It's works as good as a desktop browser.
The question I have is, what the hell is wrong with android and java scrivpt ? every browser I try has problems with executing java based content. The stock browser and browser plus seem to take a holiday whenever they want. Text fields seem to migrate all over the page, and refuse to input text. If it does by some miracle it does work, selecting the next field is a crap shoot if it will work or wonk out. Is there a decent browser that doesnt choke on java ?
Try firefox (beta) or chrome.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using xda app-developers app
namato said:
The question I have is, what the hell is wrong with android and java scrivpt ? every browser I try has problems with executing java based content. The stock browser and browser plus seem to take a holiday whenever they want. Text fields seem to migrate all over the page, and refuse to input text. If it does by some miracle it does work, selecting the next field is a crap shoot if it will work or wonk out. Is there a decent browser that doesnt choke on java ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Java and Javascript are two very different languages, Java is a language to be run on a VM (a modified version is actually used to run android) and Javascript is a scripting language used in webpages. Android does not support running Java apps, but that is not what you are asking. For your Javascript issues the default browser or chrome should do fine, the default browser has a user friendly way to always use desktop sites that you might want to check to have pages behave more like normal pages than mobile pages if you haven't already changed it.
My mistake about java and java script. I am more of a hardware guy than a software guy. I usually try to use the desktop site if I can. The problem I have is usually with a popup form of some kind. Comcast and Espn use simular forms. Using chrome works for most sites, but it is by no means the perfect browser. It is frustrating as of late the number of sites that seem to choke this tablet. Having 4 cores seems to have little benefit in rendering the webpage. Case in point, my dual core Sensation phone runs the desktop sites faster than this tablet.
I am having same issues (well my wife is). We purchased this device in hopes of it being able to double for her online classes and to take with us when out & about to entertain the kids when they do not want to sit still in restaurant etc. She is able to login into her site for school but when it comes to pop ups, applets and such it does not work. The tablet did receive the jellybean update and was hoping someone could offer some assistance in getting it working. I am somewhat a tech savvy guy and have turned on javascript, allowed popups, tried multiple browsers like dolphin, skyfire, the preloaded one, boat and none seem to allow her to do anything. I have not tried rooting or placing any sort of cooked roms in fear of messing it up. any help of steering in correct direction would be of greatest help.
werdizthaword said:
I am having same issues (well my wife is). We purchased this device in hopes of it being able to double for her online classes and to take with us when out & about to entertain the kids when they do not want to sit still in restaurant etc. She is able to login into her site for school but when it comes to pop ups, applets and such it does not work. The tablet did receive the jellybean update and was hoping someone could offer some assistance in getting it working. I am somewhat a tech savvy guy and have turned on javascript, allowed popups, tried multiple browsers like dolphin, skyfire, the preloaded one, boat and none seem to allow her to do anything. I have not tried rooting or placing any sort of cooked roms in fear of messing it up. any help of steering in correct direction would be of greatest help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now are you using the stock browser or Chrome? Chrome might be better on account I think most sites see chrome as the desktop version and has better compatibility. Just make sure to use desktop version in the settings.
will try that out....i hoping this will cure the woes....but as far as browsers, tried the stock,opera,dolphin,skyfire,& boat. never tried chrome but willing to give it a whirl. if i have any issues, ill come back to this thread. THANKS again....