Usually, when I write a review, I try to avoid mentioning other programs by name; particularly those which are in direct competition with the one I am reviewing.  In this case, however, I am going to break that rule.  It is no secret that the Pocket Word and Pocket Excel programs which are embedded in Windows Mobile are terrible.  They simply do not work as advertised and are lacking in many key features.  In fact, the very existence of these barren and unusable programs scream out for someone, anyone, to provide an alternative.  SoftMaker heard that cry and responded in kind with the first full featured Office Suite for Pocket PC. SoftMaker Office actually consists of two programs: TextMaker, a word processor, and PlanMaker, a spreadsheet viewer.

Installation and Registration: Installation is fairly standard.  Just download the file to your desktop and install it through ActiveSync.  SoftMaker Office includes an unusually length 30 day trial, which allows you to full test all of its advanced features.

Maintains formatting: One of the major complaints about Pocket Word and Excel is that they strip transferred documents of most of their advanced formatting features, leaving only bold, italics, and a few font variations.  While the content of the text is not affected, most documents, these days consist of a great deal more than words alone.  Colors, pictures, layout, and charts, are only a few of the advanced options available in MS Word that Pocket Word cannot utilize, and discards as part of the transfer process.  The programs included in the SoftMaker Office eliminate this problem.  They offer a full feature set of a modern Office suite tools (including all formatting tools), which are able to comprehend and replicate virtually any formatting option included in a Word or Excel Document.   

Easy Data Exchange: Due to the inclusion of so many advanced formatting options, SoftMaker Office is the first and only program which is able to easily exchange documents between your desktop and Pocket PC.  This is among the most useful features I have found in any program on my Pocket PC.  Before I started using SoftMaker, it was necessary to store the document on my hard drive, transfer a stripped down version to my Pocket PC, edit it and then either retype the edits or transfer the edited document back to my computer where it could be completely reformatted.  With SoftMaker Office, that cumbersome and inefficient procedure is now a thing of the past.  Because SoftMaker Office is fully compatible with MS Word and Excel, it is able to read and write documents in those formats seamlessly.  When a document is transferred to SoftMaker Office on your Pocket PC, all of the formatting options are maintained.  As such, you can edit it on the go from your Pocket PC, and transfer the edited document back to your desktop computer. The result will be a document that includes all of the original formatting. 

Multi-Language Dictionary:  One of the great things for foreign users, or multi-lingual users, is the multi-language dictionary.  SoftMaker Office can spell check in a whopping 17 languages, the most of any word processing program.  It also features a 10 language thesaurus, and a five language integrated translation dictionary.  So, for those of you who are about to travel overseas (or just across a continent), SoftMaker will help you find the bathroom or a bar (or a bathroom in a bar) in English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian. 

TEXTMAKER 2006

Overview: TextMaker is the only comprehensive word processing package available for the Pocket PC today.  As I mentioned in my introduction, this amazing program offers all of the features that should have been offered by MS Pocket Word: editing and formatting options, complex documents, pictures and images, and much much more.

Editing and Formatting Options: One of the key components of SoftMaker Office is its ability to edit and format documents exactly like its desktop counterparts.  It offers multiple necessary insert fields, such as date, time, page numbers, author, and many more.   

All of the character and paragraph formatting which appeared in your document when it was on your desktop computer, will transfer flawlessly to SoftMaker Office on your Pocket PC.   Like many of you, one of my many frustrations with Pocket Word was the loss of these formatting features, making it virtually impossible to transfer and edit documents between my desktop computer and Pocket PC.  This feature alone makes SoftMaker Office an indispensable addition to my Pocket PC. 

Additionally, TextMaker will format your paragraphs with bullets, numbers, borders, shading, and even outline format.  You can even format your characters with dozens of fonts, colors, hidden text, and adjustable spacing and width.  There are simply too many editing and formatting options to mention them all.  Needless to say, however, virtually any way you can manipulate a document on your desktop is available in TextMaker.

Create complex documents: One of the features many people love about MS Word is the ability to track changes.  Essentially, for those of you who are not familiar with this option, it highlights your additions in a particular color, and makes a note in the margin for anything you delete or change from the document.  Again, any such complex features would be instantly removed when the document was transferred to your Pocket PC.  This renders these important features useless when you are on the move.  TextMaker has solved that problem, and even allows you to accept or reject proposed changes, just like you were using the desktop version of MS Word.  This is an important feature for anyone who has ever had to negotiate the language to be used in a document or contract, as it allows you to quickly view everyone’s changes at a glance and identify who made them by color.  TextMaker even allows you to add additional comments in the margins of any document.  Finally, Textmaker offers all of the tools necessary to add proper citations to any research project, such as: footnotes, endnotes, bibliographies, indices and tables of contents.  

Picture and Tables: In addition to retaining all of your document’s formatting, TextMaker also offers a solution for transferring or creating pictures, drawings, graphics, tables, charts, and virtually any other illustrations within a document on your Pocket PC.  Additionally, TextMaker allows images to exhibit the same in-document behavior as MS Word.  This means if the image was anchored with text wrapping set in the original document, that formatting will be saved and transferred to the Pocket PC.  Such formatting decisions can be made or changed directly from the Pocket PC.

Document Formats: Like music and media players, the main downfall of any word processing program can be found in its ability to utilize numerous different word processing formats.  Unfortunately, SoftMaker Office stumbles in this area.  In addition to SoftMaker’s native format and the generic RichText Format, there are Only two primary formats: Word and WordPerfect.  Although TextMaker can utilize several versions of the Word Format, it cannot read, write, or edit WordPerfect documents.  This is an unfortunate slip in an otherwise great program.  There is currently no software available for the Pocket PC which can read, write, and edit WordPerfect documents.  Personally, I frequently use both Word and WordPerfect and would find the ability to edit both types of documents in one program to be as indispensable as being able to utilize to many different media formats in one media player.  The addition of WordPerfect functionality, for me, would significantly increase the overall usefulness of this feature.

PLANMAKER 2006

Overview: Like TextMaker, PlanMaker is the only comprehensive package for creating and editing spreadsheets available for the Pocket PC today.  As I mentioned in my introduction, this amazing program offers all of the features that should have been offered by MS Pocket Excel: comprehensive calculations, graphics and drawings, data analysis, and much much more.

Comprehensive Calculations: With over 320 different calculation functions, PlanMaker allows you to maintain and utilize virtually any calculation configuration available in MS Excel.  Numbers can be formatted to represent times, currency, decimals, fractions, and virtually any other unit of measurement.  Additionally, PlanMaker includes complex cell formatting and editing tools which allow you to make comments, autofill a series, and name ranges.  Again, virtually any formatting tool that is available in MS Excel on your desktop can be transferred and utilized in PlanMaker on your Pocket PC.  Once you have completed your calculations, PlanMaker also includes powerful charting tools with over 70 different 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional chart types.

Graphics and Drawings: One of the frequent uses I have seen for MS Excel in the workplace includes the use of graphics or drawings to illustrate a point made by the accompanying chart.  Traditionally, Pocket Excel failed to transfer such graphics, stripping them from the document.  this made editing the document in Pocket Excel extremely challenging.  Again, SoftMaker Office solves this problem with apparent ease.  PlanMaker is able to recognize and manipulate all manner of shapes and freehand drawings.  It even includes a symbol library to design your own flow charts and organizational charts.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Desktop/Windows Version: In addition to the Pocket PC suite, SoftMaker also has created a suite of programs for your desktop computer.  There is a Windows version available available now, and a Linux version which is coming soon.  These desktop programs are identical in look and feel to their Pocket PC counterparts.  They are far more than a desktop companion for the Pocket PC.  This is a full fledged Office Suite which allows you to easily transfer fully formatted documents between your Pocket PC and desktop computer (as I mentioned, however, this same transfer can also be accomplished with similar results from MS Word).  Finally, one of the most convenient features of the Windows version is that it can be installed directly to a USB thumb drive.  These means your documents can be easily accessible from any computer.  Even if Word is not installed on that computer, just insert your thumb drive and click TextMaker (or PlanMaker) and you will be ready to go.

Price: There are several different packages available.  The SoftMaker Office Package for Pocket PC costs $69.99.  Add the Windows version and the price increases to $99.99.  Each of the programs are available individually as well for $49.99.  Normally, I tend to shy away from such exorbitantly high priced software for my Pocket PC.  But, let’s be honest.  Four powerful office suit programs for $99.99.  That essentially amounts to $25 per program.  Frankly, for such a powerful tool, this is a bargain price.  However, that bargain price increases significantly as you remove items from the package.  Purchase the Pocket PC suite alone and the price rises to $35 per program.  Buy any program individually and it is $50 per program.  Thus, it gets considerably more difficult for me to recommend this program if you intend to purchase one program, without the full bundle.  My recommendation, if you want to get the most out of this program, and the most for your money, is to take the short term loss in favor of a long term gain and purchase the whole suite for $99.99. 

Conclusion: I am not often completely dazzled by any program on my Pocket PC, but I have to admit that I was simply blown away by SoftMaker Office.  Sometimes, you don’t even realize what you have been missing until someone comes along and points it out to you.  That is how I felt when I started using SoftMaker Office.  Despite its high price, SoftMaker has created a program which is unmatchable in its features, and will quickly become the most important program on your Pocket PC.  Despite its inability to utilize WordPerfect formatting, SoftMaker Office has become one of the rare indispensable programs available today.

Vital Statistics:

Title: SoftMaker Office 2006 (includes TextMaker and PlanMaker)

Version: TextMaker version 456

               PlanMaker version 314

Developer: SoftMaker Software

Available From: SoftMaker Software

                          JAMM store

Price: $49.95 (TextMaker or PlanMaker individually)

          $69.95 (SoftMaker Office)

          $99.95 (SoftMaker Office for Pocket PC and Windows)

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