SoftMaker's 50% Off Sale on TextMaker, PlanMaker

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.softmaker.com/english/' target='_blank'>http://www.softmaker.com/english/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"SoftMaker, makers of the TextMaker word processor and PlanMaker spreadsheet, announced a one-week 50% discount on their software today. Already selling at customer-friendly prices of just $49.95, TextMaker and PlanMaker can now be had for less than US$25 or EUR 25. Even better: Each additional eligible product is priced at just US$10 or 10 Euros! But hurry: This sale lasts only one week!"</i><br /><br />While this isn't the most amazing price I've seen for SoftMaker's products, it's still a decent deal if you need to upgrade your Pocket PC's word processing/spreadsheet capabilities. (The discount link is the top news item on the frontpage, and applies to all of their supported platforms.)

[signothefish]

I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but once you add an item (almost *any* item) to your cart, most everything drops down to $10, including TextMaker 2002 and PlanMaker 2004 for both Pocket PCs and Windows. These are normally $69.95 each, and they drop down to $10 each! You get both of them for $20, a $139.90 value! To see the $10 pricetag, I just added a cheaper software to my cart, such as Sütterlin Collection for PC &amp; Macintosh, which is normally $34.95, on sale for $16.95. So my entire order was $36.95. Now that's a slick deal! 8O It even beats their normal sale of $11.11 or $22.22 on 11/11 each year. Thanks for posting this, Janak! :rock on dude!:

[Jason Lee]

Yep, this is the cheepest i've ever seen plan maker. I got textmaker 2 years ago during the 11.11 sale. Bought planmaker yesterday for 16.95, got the download link today!! To bad i really didn't need anything else.. :( Amazing prices. :)

[huangzhinong]

I don't want to say textmaker or planmaker is not good. I am just wondering even if both of them are free, will them really become popular? At least I tried both one hour and uninstall it quickly. A lightweight word processor is welcome, but a 5MB app, which is used one or two times per month, is :devilboy: .

[bvkeen]

I bought TextMaker when it was in its first beta phase, at $49, and have never regretted the cost, but their famous specials are nice.

I wonder if WM2005 will ever become popular enough to effect the sells of TM and PM? I expect I'll just switch to Pocket Word and Excel when I get to upgrade my x50v.

[Jason Lee]

I bought TextMaker when it was in its first beta phase, at $49, and have never regretted the cost, but their famous specials are nice.

I wonder if WM2005 will ever become popular enough to effect the sells of TM and PM? I expect I'll just switch to Pocket Word and Excel when I get to upgrade my x50v.

i dunno. i still have my doubts about the functionality of the new word and excel. they are no doubt way better than what we have now but they still are not gonna come close to the full blown functionality of text and planmaker.

I will agree they are huge programs and i more often than not just use pocket word or excel for the simple tasks. they are just faster.
but i will definitely be keeping them around. 12mb isn't that much of a dent in my 1gb sd card.
their wonderful sales are the only reason i own the software. i don't use them near enough to justify $50-60 each. but thanks to the sales i have both for under $30 and love that i have them when i really need them.

[ipaq_wannabe]

sheesh!!!

if i just waited for just one more week - i could have gotten PlanMaker at a much cheaper price (cheaper than the upgrade price - since I already have TextMaker)...

aaarrrrggghhhh!!!

PS: i got TextMaker during their 11.11 sale-or-something

[hamishmacdonald]

I bought TextMaker at full price, and like the poster above, I haven't regretted the decision. There have been some kinks, but the developers are very responsive and have released several updates free of charge. The program now works perfectly for me. It doesn't follow the Pocket PC GUI perfectly, but that's mainly because it has more options to fit in its menus than any other program I've seen on the platform.

As a writer, I use it every day, and -- well, it's just not fair to consider Pocket Word and TextMaker to be in the same category of programs. If you're happy writing in NotePad on your PC and never use Word, fine, save yourself the money. If you need to format your text a certain way and have it stay that way round-trip between the Pocket PC and the PC, TextMaker's the only option.

I need proper formatting, too, including "smart" or "curly" quotation marks and em-dashes. TextMaker gives me these. Word strips them out, meaning that if I send any of my documents to our print department, they have to take out the inch-marks throughout the document (that's right: those things we use on the 'net are not quotation marks/inverted commas, they're inch- and foot-marks).

[Janak Parekh]

i dunno. i still have my doubts about the functionality of the new word and excel. they are no doubt way better than what we have now but they still are not gonna come close to the full blown functionality of text and planmaker.
Correct. Word Mobile is much better at roundtripping, but unless I'm mistaken, its feature set isn't that different from Pocket Word. Excel Mobile's biggest new feature is charting, but apart from that, again, there aren't a whole lot of new features.

That said, I'm sure a few sales of TextMaker will be lost for those who just needed the roundtripping, but for the real users I'm sure the niche will still exist and continue to grow.

--janak

[bvkeen]

i dunno. i still have my doubts about the functionality of the new word and excel. they are no doubt way better than what we have now but they still are not gonna come close to the full blown functionality of text and planmaker.
Correct. Word Mobile is much better at roundtripping, but unless I'm mistaken, its feature set isn't that different from Pocket Word. Excel Mobile's biggest new feature is charting, but apart from that, again, there aren't a whole lot of new features.

That said, I'm sure a few sales of TextMaker will be lost for those who just needed the roundtripping, but for the real users I'm sure the niche will still exist and continue to grow.

--janak

Sounds like my expectations for PW and PE 2005 have been overly optimistic. Good thing that I do have TextMaker, and it does run fine (and fast) off my 1GB SD card.

[yankeejeep]

From what I have seen, Pocket Word's major upgrade is in table handling and Pocket Excel's is the addition of charting. Still a very far cry from having Office equivalents on the WM platform. The only real options for those who need true Word and Excel function on a PPC are TextMaker and PlanMaker. I bought one for $11.11 one year and could hardly wait for the next fall to role around when I picked up the other. Even at full price, there is no substitute if you need real word processing and spreadsheet functionality away from your desk.

[Janak Parekh]

Sounds like my expectations for PW and PE 2005 have been overly optimistic. Good thing that I do have TextMaker, and it does run fine (and fast) off my 1GB SD card.
Microsoft basically addressed the top-requested features for Word and Excel. (Not sure why charting on a PDA is a top-requested feature, even amongst business users, but they've done more research than me -- maybe for viewing? I can't imagine making charts on a handheld to be as useful.) In general, Microsoft tries to strike a balance between adding functionality and allowing developers to flourish. It wouldn't encourage software developers to commit to the platform if Office Mobile contained everything. ;)

--janak

[bvkeen]

Sounds like my expectations for PW and PE 2005 have been overly optimistic. Good thing that I do have TextMaker, and it does run fine (and fast) off my 1GB SD card.
Microsoft basically addressed the top-requested features for Word and Excel. (Not sure why charting on a PDA is a top-requested feature, even amongst business users, but they've done more research than me -- maybe for viewing? I can't imagine making charts on a handheld to be as useful.) In general, Microsoft tries to strike a balance between adding functionality and allowing developers to flourish. It wouldn't encourage software developers to commit to the platform if Office Mobile contained everything. ;)

--janak

Very good point, Janak. Also, it wouldn't be fair to Microsoft for them to basically give away miniture versions of Word and Excel, given all the money spent in developing those products over the years.

Thanks,
Bruce