Document Editing

If there is one thing that has made great strides in recent years, it’s the fact that you can now take your office with you on your phone. Cloud storage, larger memory cards and even projectors that clip to your phone make your new device. The Evo includes what Android calls “a document viewer” that will read DOC, XLS, PDF and PPT files, but does not allow editing without an upgrade in the Market.

The stock document viewer is called QuickOffice. I won’t go in to detail on the viewer functions since they are all equally good, and most of the viewers can be hand for free, regardless of your choice of vendor. Remember, as Microsoft releases new versions of Word, your viewer or editor may not keep up with them, so purchase your updates carefully.

The toughest part of Android is deciding which vendor’s document editor is best for you. The oldest one I personally have used is DataViz Documents to Go. Documents to Go has been a favorite of BlackBerry users for quite some time. So much so, that Research In Motion, the company that makes the BlackBerry device, purchased DataViz for their own.

Documents To Go

The basic startup screen features an area where you can select which Office component you want to open. You can select files from your SD Card or create a new document. Version 3 allows linking to Google Docs which is a major performance boost and allows you to quickly sync documents over the web without creating multiple copies. When you use your device with ZumoDrive or DropBox or other “cloud storage” solution, DataViz allows you to access those files as well.

The text editor in itself is very simple. RTF formatting with selectable font, size and touch zoom. Version 3.x has included pinch to zoom functionality, but once I have set the size, I usually don’t feel the need to adjust it.

After typing your document, Docs to Go allows a quick save to the SD Card or direct saving to your cloud server.

Documents to Go: 4 out of 5  -  Free Viewer / $14.99 Editor

QuickOffice

QuickOffice is a nice compromise in an editor. It’s retail price of $9.99 is a slight bit more user friendly than some of the counterparts, but you do pay for that in performance. The startup screen is almost identical to DataViz’s setup, allowing you to select the style of document you would like to open or create.

QuickOffice also allows great usage of your SD storage and cloud services as well. The major issue I have with QuickOffice is file compatibility. It seems that every other Word 2007 file that I try to open will fail. The other issue that I have with QuickOffice is the actual load time of the document. QuickOffice takes about twice as long as Docs to Go.

After you get past the strike similarities in the startup screen, you get to the realization that these look like the exact same program, and for the most part, they are. Simple editing and typing are easy in QuickOffice, and unless you are editing monstrously large files and contracts, QuickOffice’s limitations aren’t so severe that it would justify the additional $5.00 charge to get the offering from DataViz.

QuickOffice: 3.5 out of 5  -  Free (preinstalled) Viewer – $9.99 Editor

OliveOffice Editor

OliveOffice Editor is a new player in the game and is free. Unfortunately, this app is a victim of poor comments and reviews in the Market. Some complained of not being able to edit, others of the programs features not being written in English. In the Market reviews, there are only 2 reviews that rank this app as working with their devices.

Personally, I suffered through some of the random issues that are reported in the Market reviews. I started a new doc and it worked perfectly, saving it to the root folder of my SD card. I then tried to open a document that I regularly edit in Docs to Go and the application exited immediately after showing the “loading document” screen. I think for a free alternative, OliveOffice is pretty impressive, but there are too many bugs to be considered a major editing platform. It would definitely do in a pinch for creating simple letters and text documents for quick correspondence with colleagues though. 

 

As you can see above, the editor window in a word processing document is very similar to the opposition, but it offers a menu bar across the top to provide quick access to features and menu items. Formatting seemed to be a bit easier on OliveOffice as well. Creating a new document worked very well with this app, but editing existing docs was a headache. Too many issues opening existing files from multiple sources made it almost unusable.

OliveOffice: 2.5 out of 5  -  Free Editor/Viewer

Overall, most of the editors work as well as another. The Market offers a few alternatives not covered here, but for the most part, I have to recommend DataViz and Documents to Go more than any other editor. For simple viewing, QuickOffice that is included with your device does a great job, except for Office 2010 support, which will hopefully be addressed in an update soon. For now, keep using the stock program for viewing until you need a bit more power.