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Wordsmith Pro

Wordsmith Pro

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Superior Word Processor for Palm
Review: .
I just purchased Wordsmith and spent much of the past weekend using it. For a few days the weekend before, I used the trial version of DocsToGo. I found Wodsmith to be a superior product.

The word complete is a real time saver. It also has cut and paste and multi cut & paste. It counts words, paragraphs, and characters.

Wordsmith comes with a 59 page manual in PDF format. It is reasonably priced, and is compatible with MS Word and any program that uses RTF format - even Linux. It is also compatible with PrintBoy. You can have it ask for a password when opening the program. It claims support for high resolution screens such as some of the Sony's. I am willing to bet that a color PDA with high resolution would really show this program off.

Wordsmith has enhanced the memo function in the Palm, so that it works hand and hand with their program. When you start the program, you can choose to go into your docs or your memos. You can map the Palm memo button to bring up the program if you like - and there is no reason not to, unless you are using that button for something else, since Wordsmith is tied into Palm memos anyway.

Word completion is my favorite feature, e.g., I only had to type "fea" and a pop up menu with five choices appeared. Tapping "feature" finished the word for me. This is especially helpful when writing a first draft on the Palm.

The word completion function works in other applications so e.g. if you add your most frequently-used contact names to the custom dictionary then, as you start to type the name, it becomes one of the choices which pop-up. You can set it so a 1,2,3,4,5 or 10 word choice pop-up. 5 seemed a good choice.

The ability to choose Synchronize, Palm overides Desktop, or Desktop overides Palm is also a welcome feature that is noticeably absent in WordToGo which gave me fits because it lacks a choice to allow the handheld to override desktop. I lost 2 editing sessions I had done on the Palm, and I still am not sure why. There is really no way to lose a session like that using Wordsmith except through your own fault.

Wordsmith has extensive shortcuts which work with graffiti and also worked with my Seiko Thumboard, e.g. CMD + A highlights the entire document, CMD + C copies text and CMD + P pastes it and CMD + W toggles between full screen display (13-14 lines single spacing), and normal display (11-12 lines).

Many of the commands it responds to match MS Word commands and it offers full support for some keyboards, e.g. the Stowaway and Palm Portable.

It has a View mode (read only) that is terrific for browsing and reading books using autoscroll and other navigational options. In view mode, you can control the autoscroll speed too - great for editing long documents because you can switch to Edit mode with one tap and go back again to autoscrolling with two taps.

The View mode also has a feature to allow paging down or up with a tap on the top or the bottom of the screen (not on the elevator bar but rather anywhere in the body of the document.)

The fonts are somewhat confusing as the program refers to a display font and a regular font. When you do choose a font (and also when you change the font size), Wordsmith tends to ignore your choice more often than not.

I Wish there was full support for Seiko Thumboard but I am happy that many short cut commands work fine except some using control keys (which the Thumboard does not have) and others using the shift key (which it does have.)

Wordsmith claims that they are dedicated to making this a keyboard friendly program and I believe they have succeeded in that goal.

It has many excellent navigation features as noted and supports bookmarks, going to bookmarks, footnotes and endnotes and find/replace. It even supports subscripts and superscripts.

I really don't, see any major weaknesses except the fonts. Word complete does not appear to work properly when you choose the preference "no space inserted after a word," but I feel that is a minor bug.

I hope that they include a spell checker in future releases as PDAs are coming with enough memory nowadays. This is a fine program deserving of **** 1/2 stars out of *****. They just need to fix the fonts and add the spell checker.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Superior Word Processor for Palm
Review: .
I just purchased Wordsmith and spent much of the past weekend using it. For a few days the weekend before, I used the trial version of DocsToGo. I found Wodsmith to be a superior product.

The word complete is a real time saver. It also has cut and paste and multi cut & paste. It counts words, paragraphs, and characters.

Wordsmith comes with a 59 page manual in PDF format. It is reasonably priced, and is compatible with MS Word and any program that uses RTF format - even Linux. It is also compatible with PrintBoy. You can have it ask for a password when opening the program. It claims support for high resolution screens such as some of the Sony's. I am willing to bet that a color PDA with high resolution would really show this program off.

Wordsmith has enhanced the memo function in the Palm, so that it works hand and hand with their program. When you start the program, you can choose to go into your docs or your memos. You can map the Palm memo button to bring up the program if you like - and there is no reason not to, unless you are using that button for something else, since Wordsmith is tied into Palm memos anyway.

Word completion is my favorite feature, e.g., I only had to type "fea" and a pop up menu with five choices appeared. Tapping "feature" finished the word for me. This is especially helpful when writing a first draft on the Palm.

The word completion function works in other applications so e.g. if you add your most frequently-used contact names to the custom dictionary then, as you start to type the name, it becomes one of the choices which pop-up. You can set it so a 1,2,3,4,5 or 10 word choice pop-up. 5 seemed a good choice.

The ability to choose Synchronize, Palm overides Desktop, or Desktop overides Palm is also a welcome feature that is noticeably absent in WordToGo which gave me fits because it lacks a choice to allow the handheld to override desktop. I lost 2 editing sessions I had done on the Palm, and I still am not sure why. There is really no way to lose a session like that using Wordsmith except through your own fault.

Wordsmith has extensive shortcuts which work with graffiti and also worked with my Seiko Thumboard, e.g. CMD + A highlights the entire document, CMD + C copies text and CMD + P pastes it and CMD + W toggles between full screen display (13-14 lines single spacing), and normal display (11-12 lines).

Many of the commands it responds to match MS Word commands and it offers full support for some keyboards, e.g. the Stowaway and Palm Portable.

It has a View mode (read only) that is terrific for browsing and reading books using autoscroll and other navigational options. In view mode, you can control the autoscroll speed too - great for editing long documents because you can switch to Edit mode with one tap and go back again to autoscrolling with two taps.

The View mode also has a feature to allow paging down or up with a tap on the top or the bottom of the screen (not on the elevator bar but rather anywhere in the body of the document.)

The fonts are somewhat confusing as the program refers to a display font and a regular font. When you do choose a font (and also when you change the font size), Wordsmith tends to ignore your choice more often than not.

I Wish there was full support for Seiko Thumboard but I am happy that many short cut commands work fine except some using control keys (which the Thumboard does not have) and others using the shift key (which it does have.)

Wordsmith claims that they are dedicated to making this a keyboard friendly program and I believe they have succeeded in that goal.

It has many excellent navigation features as noted and supports bookmarks, going to bookmarks, footnotes and endnotes and find/replace. It even supports subscripts and superscripts.

I really don't, see any major weaknesses except the fonts. Word complete does not appear to work properly when you choose the preference "no space inserted after a word," but I feel that is a minor bug.

I hope that they include a spell checker in future releases as PDAs are coming with enough memory nowadays. This is a fine program deserving of **** 1/2 stars out of *****. They just need to fix the fonts and add the spell checker.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Decent Synch with Word
Review: Because it uses Rich Text Format (RTF) to pass files between the desktop and the palmtop, WordSmith can't handle everything Word can, but if you don't need support for Unicode fonts, pretty much everything else seems to be handled. Oh, and since it uses RTF, files created by WordSmith should be able to be read by WordPerfect and other word processing programs, and vice versa (assuming the word processor can save files as RTFs).

This functionality has proved invaluable for editing documents on the go without having to lug a laptop everywhere, and it is even better for composing new documents (although the use of a folding keyboard makes such tasks much easier). It also can be used as an e-book reader; the program can save to/read from the PalmDoc text format.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WordSmith integrates with Sony keyboard
Review: Besides its other good features reviewed elsewhere, this program makes full use of the Sony Clie folding keyboard features. This aspect alone makes it a worthwhile purchase if you are using such a keyboard.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WordSmith integrates with Sony keyboard
Review: Besides its other good features reviewed elsewhere, this program makes full use of the Sony Clie folding keyboard features. This aspect alone makes it a worthwhile purchase if you are using such a keyboard.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome Program
Review: I bought this program, and I just love how this thing works seamlessly with MS-Word 97. I am completely sold. Awesome product!! Way2Go!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome Program
Review: I bought this program, and I just love how this thing works seamlessly with MS-Word 97. I am completely sold. Awesome product!! Way2Go!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Exceeds the competition's offering
Review: I was a bit skeptical about this program, but was pleasently surprised after installation and use for note taking in my college lectures. It offers much more functionality than the bonus 'Pro' application included with my new PDA.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Good word processor for PDA's
Review: I've been using WordSmith Pro for about 8 months now. It has great compatibility with Microsoft Word and most desktop word processors. It has all of the needed functions for any full-featured word processor, even handling tables!

I do a lot of synching for both business and personal use between the PDA (Palm Vx) and desktop and find it handles everything I want.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wordsmith Pro - Excellent
Review: I've been using WordSmith Pro for about 8 months now. It has great compatibility with Microsoft Word and most desktop word processors. It has all of the needed functions for any full-featured word processor, even handling tables!

I do a lot of synching for both business and personal use between the PDA (Palm Vx) and desktop and find it handles everything I want.


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