|  by
Don Engstrom
In the past several years PDA's, or Personal Digital
Assistants for the uninitiated, have quietly infiltrated
the lives of millions of Mac users. Having your calendar,
to-do list and contacts (not to mention the odd game
or two) all together in one device is undeniably handy.
Documents to Go from DataViz
aims to extend the usefulness of your Palm OS device
by allowing you to synchronize text documents and spreadsheets
from your Mac to your handheld device.
Setup: Documents to Go consists of three components;
the desktop application (pictured below) which you use
to select documents for synchronization, a conduit to
allow the synchronization to take place, and Palm applications
for viewing your documents.
Desktop Application - There are two methods
for adding documents via the desktop application. If
the document is in an open window, simply drag it to
the DTG window. Alternately you can click on the "Add"
button to navigate to the document you want. Documents
are translated to a format viewable on your PDA. If
you try to add a file that is not supported, a PDF file
for example, you will get a message stating that the
file is not currently supported along with an e-mail
address for requesting future support, a nice touch.
DataViz recently announced that they will be adding
support for PDF files wish will be a welcome addition.
The desktop application also provides useful information
on each document including: size, category and whether
it is more current than the version on your PDA.
Palm Applications - There are currently three
applications for viewing your documents. WordView lets
you view documents in the popular "Doc" format.
WordView+ lets you view formatted text (bold, italics,
underlined, justified, etc) as well as documents with
embedded tables. SheetView, as you may have guessed,
lets you view spreadsheets. All three programs make
moving around easy with navigation arrows, search functions
and the ability to add bookmarks for quick access later.
You can also beam your documents to other handheld devices
along with the appropriate viewer application if the
recipient device doesn't have DTG installed.
Conclusions: We tested Documents to Go with
a variety AppleWorks (5) spreadsheets and word processing
documents as well as a few SimpleText ReadMe files.
In all cases the documents were reproduced faithfully
on our PDA's screen. Beaming a spreadsheet along with
the SheetView application to a PDA without DTG worked
flawlessly as well. DataViz has done a bang up job with
Documents To Go especially given the confines of small
screen on PDA's. Navigation is easy in all three handheld
applications thanks to the built in search and bookmarking
functions. My only complaint is that DTG doesn't allow
you to edit documents on the handheld but according
to the DataViz web site this is planned for a future
release. Anyone that needs to have spreadsheet or word
processing documents available on the road will find
this a valuable addition to their PDA. We look forward
to PDF support in the future.
| Product: Documents to Go, version
2.005 |
| Company: DataViz |
| Hits: Excellent reproduction
of desktop documents, good navigation tools, can
beam documents & viewer to PDA's that don't
have DTG installed. PDF support in the works. |
| Misses: Can't edit documents
on handheld, no support for databases. |
Rating: 
(5 possible) |
| Minimum Requirements:
- Power Mac
- OS 7.6 or newer
- 8MB RAM, 8MB drive space
- Palm OS 2.0 or newer
- MacPac 2, HotSync Manager 2.1
|
Supported Applications:
- Word 6, 8 (98)
- ClarisWorks/AppleWorks 4,5 (word processing)
- Text
- Excel 5, 8 (98)
- ClarisWorks/AppleWorks 4,5 (spreadsheet)
|
|
