If you've used Windows Mobile you have probably heard of Softmaker who had one of the most capable office suites for Windows Mobile. They brought a desktop grade office suite to Windows Mobile. They have been developing a version for Android and it is now ready for public testing.
To be useful in the real world, an office suite needs to be compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.
SoftMaker Office Mobile for Android fills this requirement competently: It not only works impeccably with the old Microsoft Office formats DOC, XLS, and PPT, but also faithfully reads and writes files in the new DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX formats that have been introduced with Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010.
You will not find any other mobile office suite that renders documents in all these file formats as faithfully as SoftMaker Office Mobile.
System requirements
Smartphones and tablets running Android 2.2 or higher
ARM-compatible CPU
64 MByte RAM
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You can download the apks from their site and you will have to register for a free software key.
Download: http://softmaker.com/english/ofa_en.htm
A new beta has been released, and will be usable until the end of May. You can use the same product key from the previous beta. Use the same download link as above.
Some of the changes:
Several problems in the file manager are fixed now
Evernote can now be used
Crash during program launch has been fixed
Several issues with product activation have been corrected
PDF export improved
Some fixes to dialog boxes (for example, the document statistics dialog)
To exit from the applications, you now have to tap the Back button twice
PlanMaker now offers to align cells horizontally and vertically
Keyboard shortcuts such as Ctrl+B and Ctrl+O are now available on devices with keyboards
Several minor changes
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Related
Well-known, great business & connectivity-related Windows Mobile site - also having (re)published some of my articles - Modern Nomads has just published a great article on the brand new Windows Mobile 6, also known as Crossbow. Highly recommended!
I’ll also promptly (hopefully still today – I’ll try to publish the RDM updates today as, currently, no existing WM6 article seems to have it compared to the predecessors) update my previous roundups and compatibility tests with WM6-specific information; most importantly, the Bible of Accessing Remote Desktops (the new Remote Desktop Mobile client is VASTLY superior to the Terminal Services Client of previous WM operating system versions), the PPC Mailer Bible (where I’ll elaborate on, for example, the new HTML-related capabilities of the new Messaging version), the CSS/ Ajax Compatibility Report (where I publish info on whether the new, AKU3+ Internet Explorer Mobile indeed supports AJAX better than its predecessors) etc.
1. After publishing my review of VirtualCE 4 (Cross-posts: AximSite, XDA-Developers - 1, XDA-Developers - 2, BrightHand, HowardForums, MoDaCo, PocketGamer.org, PPCT, SPT), there have been some changes:
a new MyMobiler version has been released, implementing, for example, manual screen rotation and the ability to hide the Today screen icon
some of the bugs of VirtualCE 4 have been fixed (for example, BMP24 crashing). Hope the developer also finds a way to completely (even from the bottom taskbar) hide the main selector / controller screen as is asked in the above-linked HowardForums thread
Pocket Controller 6 has turned out to support LAN discovery and hiding the connection “bubble” upon TCP/IP connection (as opposed to the ActiveSync one).
2. I, after more than a week’s waiting (see my previous post HERE), still haven’t received any feedback from the Strategy Analytics Inc. folks regarding the lack of Opera Mini in their 5-Star Safari Leads Mobile Browsing Experience, which, in many Windows Mobile users’ (including me) opinion, is the most useful / quickest Web browser for the Windows Mobile platform. And, for other mobile platforms too – on my Symbian Nokia N95 and BlackBerry 8800, I almost exclusively use this browser to access the Web. Not including it in the test makes the entire report pretty hard to depend on – it’s like completely ignoring, for example, Ferrari (a top-performing car) when evaluating the cars of Formula-1.
And, of course, I’ve already elaborated on the bad ranking of Nokia Web (running on Symbian S60 3rd edition devices – that is, NOT on Windows Mobile) and, particularly, Opera Mobile (running on all major mobile platforms). Again and again, if you do learn the dialpad shortcuts and/or, with Opera Mobile running on a dialpad-less Pocket PC, use a third-party tool to assign its key functionalities (accessing favorites, current tabs, back etc.) to Pocket PC hardware buttons, they both become quicker and easier to operate than Internet Explorer. It’s clearly at this point (in addition to the lack of Opera Mini) that Strategy Analytics Inc.’s report severely lacks – it’s evident the test folks didn’t really make an attempt at learning the dialpad shortcuts / configure Opera Mobile for easy and much quicker access / use.
3. Still as far as Windows Mobile and Symbian are concerned, a brand-new Web browser, Skyfire has been released. See some of the related threads HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE (a preview) and HERE. I, as I’m located in Europe, still haven’t had the choice to test it (it's, currently, only available for US residents).
Based on the first reports, it’s based on a similar architecture than Microsoft’s, for the time being, discontinued DeepFish (RIP!) and Thunderhawk’s Java applet emulation. That is, it, in practice, generates an image of the page on the server and transfers this to the client – there isn’t local HTML (?) / Flash parsing / execution on the client side at all. This has both pros and cons, as has already been explained in my Web Browsing Bible.
I REALLY hope Skyfire is WAY better implemented than DeepFish (or Thunderhawk's applet emulation). DeepFish was really slow – not only because its beta servers were, generally, really overloaded, but also because it was implemented using the slowish Compact Framework, as opposed to the much faster Win32 API. Unfortunately, Thunderhawk’s (remote, image transfer-based) Java applet emulation isn’t really capable of emulating running it on the local mobile either. Therefore, I seriously doubt you’ll be able to, say, play fast Flash action games under Skyfire – you’ll still need a local Flash interpreter (only available Opera Mobile or Internet Explorer - and, also, NetFront, but the latter has a pretty buggy and definitely less compatible Flash engine) for that.
I’ll meet the Skyfire folks at Barcelona; hope I’ll be able to play with their browser a bit so that I can quickly test its usability, small screen-friendliness (for example, does it have the same, excellent text boundary recognition engine than that of Opera Mini in full layout mode) and Web standards compliance.
4. There are new builds of both Jbed and Jblend (two excellent MIDlet Managers – see the Java MIDlet Bible for more info). Due to lack of time, I haven’t tested them. Both has been done by Da_G (his projects’ homepage is HERE) and are accessible HERE. Note that you MUST register yourself (it’s free and is done quickly) in order to access the page above (along with the download).
I hope I’ll be able to test them some time – along with the default Blackberry MIDlet manager. (I might wait with testing the latter until version 4.5 of BB OS is released, though.)
5. the new, in addition to the venerable and no-longer-developed Pocket Humanity, Civilization-clone, Revival (see the links to (p)reviews HERE), has been released! It’s a bit pricey for Pocket PC’s (and Palm OS 5 models): $24.95. Fortunately, if you have a non-touchscreen MS Smartphone, you only end up having to pay $15.95 - just like with Symbian S60v3 and UIQ3 devices. Finally, if you have an old Symbian S60 or UIQ device, you’ll only need to shell out $9.95 for the game. Definitely worth a try! Also note that, in addition to the previews linked above, there’s a brand new JAMM one HERE well worth checking out.
Menneisyys said:
I’ll meet the Skyfire folks at Barcelona; hope I’ll be able to play with their browser a bit so that I can quickly test its usability, small screen-friendliness (for example, does it have the same, excellent text boundary recognition engine than that of Opera Mini in full layout mode) and Web standards compliance.
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look forward to your thoughts on this eagerly anticipated web browser...hope its not a let down
PS:try to bluejack a copy if you can j/ks
I, like many, have been on the quest to find the best OfficeSuite for Android, especially one that maintains some particular formatting I have. We all know the story, every app has some shortcoming so I actually use a combination of 4 based on what I'm doing.
Today I wondered if I should make a switch on the desktop. I don't need to use MS Office, but I need more formatting that Google Docs provides. So the question, is there a Desktop office suite or file format that does a better job playing nice with Android and the existing office suites? I'm going to test out LibreOffice, but didn't know if there were others I should consider too. I want to be sure that going back and forth preserves styles I have in the document and layout (like booklet layout.)
Which ones have you tried?
toenail_flicker said:
Which ones have you tried?
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I regularly use:
Polaris Office
Office Suite Pro 6
QuickOffice Pro HD
I've tried:
Documents to Go
SoftMaker Office 2012
I've just started to test SoftMaker Office 2012 but so far I think the most robust is Office Suite Pro and I can also print directly from there which is very handy. Had greater hopes for QuickOffice after Google's purchase but haven't seen any updates in ages.
OfficeSuite Pro 6 is the one I use. Best I've found so far. Always open to new apps, though.
I think the biggest problem is the possible formats available for android vs other computers. LibreOffice use's, as it's default, the ODF format and as yet there is no editing support for that format in android. However! LibreOffice is working on an android version but I fear it is still quite a ways off.
I like Kingsoft Office, but I try to use Google Docs for most of my needs.
Just wanted to write a review about a great app to give back to the developers. It's the best Microsoft Office viewer there is and it's free: Mobile Document Viewer. The interface is clean and it works very fast (except with very large files), and can even read documents to with a built-in text to speech engine. It's a MUST tool to always have installed on your phone because you never know when you are going to need it.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.joergjahnke.documentviewer.android.free
Has anyone yet tried the following apps?
SoftMaker Office apps?
If it's anything as advanced as their legendary windows mobile edition, then it's worth 6 times the price
check out a review back in 2002 edition
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/software/textmaker-2002.htm
I would like to see if Android platform can hold a light to Windows yet, in terms of productivity.
Yeah, bought the complete Softmaker apps when the were available in the Play Store and still lovin' them like on my old Windows Mobile devices. :good:
I have them all as well. So far, I think they are the best of the Android Office replacement apps, but they are still pretty limited. They do not move you into "windows-level" productivity by any means. . . Perhaps one of their best features is that they allow you install and use all your TT fonts! Presentations works for mild editing of existing presentations and actually presents them reasonably well. . . but it is VERY limited for content creation.
Still, they are better than all the others I have tried (Quick Office, Smart Suite, Documents to Go, Kingsoft Office).
I use all three SoftMaker Office apps, too - no others have a comparable compatibility with Microsoft Office formats, no others are so feature-packed.
For all who are interested: I found that today only SoftMaker sells the complete package (íncluding word processor TextMaker Mobile, spreadsheet PlanMaker Mobile, and presentation program Presentations Mobile) €10 / US$ 10 cheaper, just have a look at the homepage, or Facebook profile for more information.
Office Suite is still #1 IMHO.
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@Jonathanpeyton:
I have used Office Suite Pro for a while, but I found the editing options to restricted, SoftMaker Office Mobile has so much more...
E.g. word processor: Office Suite Pro doesn't even display track changes correctly, but TextMaker Mobile gives you full functionality. You can see changes, record, accept/reject, and jump from one to the next, plus view, edit, and add comments. The process is very similar to how it works in Word, so anyone familiar with that program will have no problem in this app. Same with Comments, footnotes, endnotes,...
The presentation tool of Office Suite Pro doesn't even play all my slide transitions, and no sound, or animations, you can't place comments on your slides, you don't have a spell checker, and such... but Presentations Mobile plays it all and has it all.
Spreadsheet PlanMaker Mobile has more built-in functions than any other, masters syntax highlighting, and rotating text, supports 3d charts, and many other niceties Office Suite Pro doesn't offer.
You can buy a few dictionaries for Office Suite Pro, but get a lot more for free with SoftMaker Office Mobile; you can embed any TrueType, or OpenType fonts with it; and there are several more reasons for me finding SoftMaker Office Mobile way better than Office Suite Pro.
And one strength of it makes it invaluable for me: it's brilliant interoperability with Microsoft Office formats, because I can open any Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file faithfully with it, whilst all others that I've tested, including Office Suite Pro, had problems opening some documents (e.g. if those were password-protected, or had a large size), and opened others only with formatting losses.
If you don't know SoftMaker Office Mobile yet, you should download the free trial versions of TextMaker Mobile, PlanMaker Mobile, and Presenttaions Mobile from the Play Store, and compare them with Office Suite Pro.