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A Perfect Word Processor for the Palm OSSep 03 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line If you do any amount of writing, you need WordSmith. It's relatively small (475k), and packs a lot of features.
I hope this is the right place to post this opinion/review. WordSmith is not one of the software titles listed under the main PDA Software category. This application is so great I think everyone should know about it. I'm new to this handheld world. I bought a Palm m505 mostly because I wanted an ebook reader but I also wanted something that did more than just read ebooks. I bought the Palm Portable Keyboard figuring that since the Memo application that came with the m505 lets you enter up to 4,000 characters, I might use it to do some of my writing on. Well, first off, if all you're using is Graffiti or the on-screen keypad 4,000 characters is plenty. But once you hook on your portable keyboard, it's nowhere near enough. And how are you going to know when you're getting close to 4,000 characters? So the two main features I wanted were 1) Word count, and 2) Ability to transfer files back and forth between my handheld and computer. I decided to go online and look for a word processor for PDAs. I started with freeware, but couldn't find anything that worked like the documentation said (specifically, after I hotsynced, I couldn't read the file with Word or Simple Text - hey you get what you pay for, right?). I searched for a shareware word processor and found WordSmith from Blue Nomad (www.bluenomad.com) for $29.95. You can use it for free but are only allowed 100 edits. WordSmith saves files in .RTF format so they transfer perfectly over to Word, or any program that reads .RTF files. I did discover from trial and error that you must apply some formatting attribute (like "bold") to some of the characters. This forces WordSmith to save in the .RTF format. Otherwise the files come over messed up. You can also save files in the .DOC format. WordSmith also has a word/character count feature. Since portability and checking word count were the two main features I was looking for, I would have been happy if that was all it did. But it does so much more. It reads/creates/edits Memo files. I have gone into the palm's preferences and re-mapped the Notes button to open WordSmith. When WordSmith opens there are two tabs: "Memo" and "Doc". Memo shows all your memos, and Doc shows all the WordSmith doc's you've created. WordSmith uses anti-aliasing for its text display. This removes the jagged text, making it smooth and easy to read. Under "Display Options" there are three different text sizes to choose from. In "View" mode WordSmith works as an ebook reader. In either "View" or "Edit" mode you can use bookmarks. You can navigate quickly to the top, bottom, a specific paragraph, a bookmark, or the previous paragraph. Besides Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, and Paste, some of the editing features are Find/Replace, Insert Footnote, and Insert Comment (these last two don't transfer over in .RTF format). Under Formatting options you can apply Bold, Underline, and Italic. You can also align text Left, Right, and Center. There are still other features that I'm not sure I'll use. In my opinion, this is a feature-laden product well worth $29.95.  |
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by texas-swede
