Mobile Office Suite for Android Announced: Office Mobile 2012

[Michael Knutson]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.softmaker.com/english/index_en.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.softmaker.com/english/index_en.htm</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"German software vendor SoftMaker today announced the immediate launch of the public beta test of its new mobile office suite SoftMaker Office Mobile 2012 for Android. Boasting impeccable compatibility with Microsoft Office, it is poised to become an excellent choice for demanding users of Android phones and tablets."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/lpt/auto/1334333596.usr17748.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>A (free-to-try) beta has been announced by SoftMaker, and includes TextMaker word processor, PlanMaker spreadsheet, and SoftMaker Presentations. The suite promises Office 2010 compatibility (docx, pptx and xlsx formats) and will be sold and priced individually, at about 10 Euros (or equivalent dollars) per app. Highlights include: direct PDF export/save; syncing with Dropbox, Evernote and eventually Google Docs; multi-language spell checking that underlines errors in red; supports track changes in a format familiar to MSO users; plays presentations with full transitions and animations; and supports adding TrueType and/or OpenType typefaces. Sounds promising!</p>

[Craig Horlacher]

When you sign up they give you a license key to put in the first time your run the software. It seems that the software will stop working at the end of this month or they will issue new license codes to continue the beta. Still, a great way to try it out! While in some ways the software seems great and similar to what I had with SoftMaker Office on Windows Mobile you can tell it's beta. For instance, one missing feature is setting the margins in the word processor. In the Spreadsheet it gets a little funny with entering numbers - which you'd think would be pretty important. Now that it's out in beta and all these bugs are coming out I'm confident they will fixed and result in an excellent mobile office package. Actually, I'd be surprised if anything out there, other than SoftMaker Office for Windows Mobile, is better when it gets released.

BTW...to enable spell check you need to do this which I copied from their forums:

1. TextMaker creates a folder "SoftMaker" on your SD card.
2. Create a folder "spell" below this folder and place the required dictionary files in it.

Here are three dictionaries:

English (UK): http://www.softmaker.net/down/ukeng.dcn
English (US): http://www.softmaker.net/down/useng.dcn
French: http://www.softmaker.net/down/french.dcn
Spanish: http://www.softmaker.net/down/spanish.dcn
German: http://www.softmaker.net/down/rgerman.dcn

3. In TextMaker, go to Tools/Options and select the default spelling language for your documents. (Select "None" to turn off on-the-fly spell-checking.)

4. The Format/Character dialog has been enhanced to allow the individual marking of text passages as belonging to a certain language. Note that if you open a Word file in TextMaker, it will usually have its language defined in Format/Character and not in Tools/Options.

[Sven Johannsen]

Hmm, good news. As Craig noted Softmaker was very involved with Office for Windows Mobile. In many ways theirs was a better product than MSs own mobile Office apps. Definatly going to give them a shot.