Pocket Word and Pocket Excel use with i730

[natecorbitt]

I recently purchased an i730. This is my first foray into the use of a Pocket PC. I have a question about Pocket Word and Excel that I am hoping someone can answer. When I upload a Word document to Pocket Word or a spreadsheet to Pocket Excel, make changes, then put them back on my desktop, the formatting is all screwed up when I open them back up in the regular Word or Excel. Does anyone know if there is a way to fix this, or is it something I am going to have to live with?

[Don't Panic!]

Well if you do not specify to save as an excel or word document it will mess it up.

Try this make a spreadsheet or Document with some formatting on your computer then open it on you i730 make some changes and before closing the file click on Tools > File > Save Workbook As and change the last dropdown box to Excel 97/2000 Workbook. In Word it would be Tools > File > Save Document As

HTH

[Sven Johannsen]

That's something you need to understand and work around. Saving as a Word or Excel file won't fix it. Pocket Word and Excel have a limited suite of Word and Excel functionality. Unfortunately if you make changes to a file on the PPC, it saves it without those features it doesn't support, regardless if you save it as a pocket Word or Word file. Same with Excel.

The work around is primarily not to put your only copy of important Word and Excel files in the sync folder. There is too big a risk of accidentally making a minor change and having the PC resident file overwritten.

No particular joy for you, but one of the improvements in WM5 is that Pocket Word and Excel file formats are gone. The intent is now that even if a feature isn't supported, round tripping the file won't delete it. This should let you edit those things you can see, without losing the things you can't.

[natecorbitt]

No particular joy for you, but one of the improvements in WM5 is that Pocket Word and Excel file formats are gone. The intent is now that even if a feature isn't supported, round tripping the file won't delete it. This should let you edit those things you can see, without losing the things you can't.
Thanks for the info. I had read the other threads regarding the i730 and WM5 earlier and decided to call Verizon and ask about the upgrade. I was told that if I took my phone to a Verizon store, the techs could upgrade to WM5. Unfortunately, none of the stores around me have WM5 yet. Is it even out yet? If not, is there a date?

[Jason Dunn]

Welcome to the site! I can only echo what has already been said - round-tripping is a pain point with the current devices and what you encountered is sadly normal.

PS - Please only post once to the forums, cross posting the same message more than once is a no-no. ;-) I've deleted your second post.

[natecorbitt]

Sorry about that. Won't happen again.

[Sven Johannsen]

Yes WM5 is out, in that it was Released To Market in May. That means the OEMs have it. AFAIK there isn't a single retail device out with it yet. (Could be off by one) There are a number of new ones that are real close. Upgrades tend to be a bit behind new devices on the market. I'm happy for you that they seem to actually be intending to upgrade you. You just need to be patient.

[Janak Parekh]

An alternative is to buy a 3rd-party full-featured word processor/spreadsheet, like the solutions offered by SoftMaker (www.softmaker.de). They certainly roundtrip better, but at a cost.

--janak