Documents to Go now in App Store

[LostLogik]

looks good. Can someone confirm the google exchange question?

Confirmation, DTG doesn't work with GMail. Goodle hasn't set up activesync to work with mail. DTG falls over trying to get the ID of the Inbox. So that was a wasted purchase. Still someone had to try ...

As it happens, I think QuickOffice offers a more all-round type of app (at the moment), with its ability to mail files, access iDisk etc. DTG may be bargain basement price but there is a reason noting the lack of some key functions.

However, when viewing Word files, DTG has one major advantage, in that it actually retains the format of the document, so you can see what it should look like. QuickOffice seems to fall short in this respect. I can't see any true tab positions in documents and would dare alter them on my iphone. At least DTG shows a true representation of layout.

I wish either/both would allow access to Headers and Footers though. Not seeing those or being able to edit them is a pain.

 

[Wordslinger29]

Maybe I'm missing it, but is there any way to indent just the first line of a paragraph? The indent button moves the entire paragraph.

 

[LostLogik]

Maybe I'm missing it, but is there any way to indent just the first line of a paragraph? The indent button moves the entire paragraph.

Yes, DTG is limited in its handling of tabs and indents. In fact it is limited in a whole host of areas. And the typing speed is dreadful. The only thing I like about it over QuickOffice is its ability to render a page as laid out. Other than that, it's a pain.

 

[Wordslinger29]

Yes, DTG is limited in its handling of tabs and indents. In fact it is limited in a whole host of areas. And the typing speed is dreadful. The only thing I like about it over QuickOffice is its ability to render a page as laid out. Other than that, it's a pain.

Does QuickOffice offer a way to tab?

 

[LostLogik]

Does QuickOffice offer a way to tab?

Yes, it gives a good option to increase or decrease the first line indent or the whole indent.

 

[ThanatosId]

I'm not sure why people are complaining about the desktop application. It allows you to link in different folders on your computer so that anytime you make a change in the document on your phone or computer, it will automatically sync the changes seamlessly in all locations. If you link by Http://, you'd have to physically find and replace all documents that have been altered. The time saver and organizer that D2G has provided is ingenious! That being said, I do hope that they add iDisk and additional email support in future builds.

 

[LostLogik]

I'm not sure why people are complaining about the desktop application. It allows you to link in different folders on your computer so that anytime you make a change in the document on your phone or computer, it will automatically sync the changes seamlessly in all locations.

Agreed, it is a good mechanism and the ability to link different folders is an added bonus. However, the problem is that it is the only way to get files into and out of DTG if you don't use Exchange.

 

[iFerd]

Deleted.

 

[Wordslinger29]

Yes, it gives a good option to increase or decrease the first line indent or the whole indent.

Then the lack of tab seems like a pretty big oversight considering a similiar app has it. For the kind of writing I need to work on, the ability to indent the first line is major. Maybe I'll look into QuickOffice

 

[iFerd]

Never mind again. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Kahnyl]

After using this throughout the day I have to say Quickoffice is so much better.

And I used to think Quickoffice sucked.

 

[odelay]

After using this throughout the day I have to say Quickoffice is so much better.

And I used to think Quickoffice sucked.

Agreed. All it has over QuickOffice is the ability to access Exchange attachments. I like the way Dataviz have implemented this, but there's no competition in terms of features, without iDisk access and xls editing, it's unusable for me.

 

[Celos]

Is the only way to sync the iPhone to your Mac/PC over Wifi? Does it not work via the dock/cable and a regular iTunes-like sync?

I use my iPhone in a corporate environment (using Exchange over the air for email and calendaring), and have no easy/supported/sanctioned way to sync via WiFi at work. I can sync through iTunes with a cable -- which I already do at home and at work as needed.

Given that I'm likely to use the Exchange edition of DocsToGo it might not be a huge deal, as most of what I'm likely to want to edit will be in email. There are other documents that might not be, though, and it sounds like it might be nearly impossible for me to get those onto the iPhone.

Can anyone who's already purchased it check cable syncing?

 

[LostLogik]

Is the only way to sync the iPhone to your Mac/PC over Wifi? Does it not work via the dock/cable and a regular iTunes-like sync?

Can anyone who's already purchased it check cable syncing?

The Docs To Go Desktop app only seems to connect over wifi, sorry.

 

[velvetelvis]

The Docs To Go Desktop app only seems to connect over wifi, sorry.

quickoffice is the same way. it really sucks because im out in the field where there might not always be free wifi. and i need to get docs off my email onto a thumb drive to print up. but with no wifi, that means no email. and it really sucks. oh, and no tethering.

 

[odelay]

So here's my take on D2G for iP:

The wait has been very frustrating, it's taken around a year to get this far, then there was the long wait for the app to be approved (through no fault of Dataviz). But at least it got there in the end.

It's got it's positives (I really like the Exchange integration), but I've been left fairly disappointed. Considering how long we've been waiting for this, I expected a much more 'finished' app to be in our hands.

The lack of MobileMe iDisk access for viewing/editing my files is a glaring omission. Considering the number of apps on the AppStore that provide this functionality, I can't for the life of me understand why Dataviz would leave it out. There is a very large number of MobileMe users, and I expected this feature to be a given. Hopefully we will see this soon in an update.

Then there's the lack of xls editing. This was QuickOffice's first editing feature in their MobileFiles Pro / QuickSheet app, so I expected Dataviz to also ship with this capability, as well as the doc editing we'd seen in the early screenshots.

Doc editing IS there, but this has it's limitations:
• I see no way of changing text font or size, and for me this is more key than the colour or background colour of text (which is possible).
• There is also no way to indent the first line of a paragraph; you can indent an entire paragraph, but not the first line. Again, the wrong way around in terms of usefulness for me, and many others I imagine.
• Copy & Paste - So, Dataviz delayed the release to make it OS3.0 compatible (I'm using OS3.0 beta). However, they didn't make it copy & paste compatible, i.e. you cannot use OS3.0 system wide copy & paste with D2G, you can do it within the app, but not to/from other apps. This seems very odd to me. Again, hopefully we'll see this in an update in the not too distant future. Personally I much prefer the OS3.0 system wide copy/paste that Apple have implemented over the Dataviz one, same goes for text selection.


Some positives:

It's not all bad though. Here are some positives:
• Exchange email access - this has been done very nicely. You setup your Exchange account, click the "Attachments" option, and the app will search your inbox for emails that have editable files, i.e. .doc/.docx attachments only for now. Once we have xls editing, this will be even ore useful. I would also want to see the app search all my subfolders for compatible attachments, as I tend to keep my Inbox pretty empty and categorise all my emails to subfolders. Currently it only checks my inbox.
• doc editing - there are some useful functions here, for example zooming in/out of a document, sending the updated file as an attachment, find & replace text within a document
• desktop syncing - The free desktop app to sync files to D2G seems pretty good. Some will say why have this over just a web browser option like QuickOffice has. Well, the big advantage over that solution is that you can choose to sync an entire folder. That way you don't have to select individual files to transfer; any time a file has been changed (either on your desktop or on your iPhone/iPod), the file will be updated on both the next time you sync.


All in all, it's a nice app, I feel, but it's really needs some updates, and soon if there going to seriously compete with QuickOffice. This is what I would like so see:

• MobileMe iDisk access for viewing, downloading, editing and uploading files to/from my iDisk
• Additional email account access (incl. non-Exchange accounts) - as well as my work Exchange account, I want to see the option to access attachments from my personal email account (MobileMe)
• Searching for attachments in subfolders of my email accounts
• Excel editing (obviously)
• Enhancements to the doc editing - indent first line of a paragraph; edit the font type and size of text;
• Enhancements to copy/paste - use Apple's OS3.0 system-wide copy&paste to allow for pasting from other apps (notepad, email, safari etc.) or copying text to other apps (email, notepad etc); also allow for pasting/inserting images from the photo roll (or copied from Safari) into a doc
• Enhancements to file viewing - so they use Apple's inbuilt document viewer for anything other than doc files; but I would like to see them implement their own viewer with some more advanced features, i.e. the ability to "go to page", bookmark and fast scroll through a large PDF document. I have a lot of large technical books in PDF format, that I want to be able to navigate through faster than the inbuilt viewer will allow me to.

So there's my take on v1.0 of D2G. It's staying on my iPhone for now, because the email attachment access is very useful to me. Otherwise I would have stuck with QuickOffice, which has more advanced features, including iDisk access, xls editing etc.

I just hope we see more in the way of communication and support from Dataviz than we've been used to in awaiting this release.

 

[iFerd]

Is the only way to sync the iPhone to your Mac/PC over Wifi? Does it not work via the dock/cable and a regular iTunes-like sync?

Apple does not permit other developers to use the USB cable for syncing. So developers have little choice but to use Wi-Fi or the "cloud." So you won't find another application that does it.

 

[SFC Archer]

So here's my take on D2G for iP:

The wait has been very frustrating, it's taken around a year to get this far, then there was the long wait for the app to be approved (through no fault of Dataviz). But at least it got there in the end.

It's got it's positives (I really like the Exchange integration), but I've been left fairly disappointed. Considering how long we've been waiting for this, I expected a much more 'finished' app to be in our hands.

The lack of MobileMe iDisk access for viewing/editing my files is a glaring omission. Considering the number of apps on the AppStore that provide this functionality, I can't for the life of me understand why Dataviz would leave it out. There is a very large number of MobileMe users, and I expected this feature to be a given. Hopefully we will see this soon in an update.

Then there's the lack of xls editing. This was QuickOffice's first editing feature in their MobileFiles Pro / QuickSheet app, so I expected Dataviz to also ship with this capability, as well as the doc editing we'd seen in the early screenshots.

Doc editing IS there, but this has it's limitations:
• I see no way of changing text font or size, and for me this is more key than the colour or background colour of text (which is possible).
• There is also no way to indent the first line of a paragraph; you can indent an entire paragraph, but not the first line. Again, the wrong way around in terms of usefulness for me, and many others I imagine.
• Copy & Paste - So, Dataviz delayed the release to make it OS3.0 compatible (I'm using OS3.0 beta). However, they didn't make it copy & paste compatible, i.e. you cannot use OS3.0 system wide copy & paste with D2G, you can do it within the app, but not to/from other apps. This seems very odd to me. Again, hopefully we'll see this in an update in the not too distant future. Personally I much prefer the OS3.0 system wide copy/paste that Apple have implemented over the Dataviz one, same goes for text selection.


Some positives:

It's not all bad though. Here are some positives:
• Exchange email access - this has been done very nicely. You setup your Exchange account, click the "Attachments" option, and the app will search your inbox for emails that have editable files, i.e. .doc/.docx attachments only for now. Once we have xls editing, this will be even ore useful. I would also want to see the app search all my subfolders for compatible attachments, as I tend to keep my Inbox pretty empty and categorise all my emails to subfolders. Currently it only checks my inbox.
• doc editing - there are some useful functions here, for example zooming in/out of a document, sending the updated file as an attachment, find & replace text within a document
• desktop syncing - The free desktop app to sync files to D2G seems pretty good. Some will say why have this over just a web browser option like QuickOffice has. Well, the big advantage over that solution is that you can choose to sync an entire folder. That way you don't have to select individual files to transfer; any time a file has been changed (either on your desktop or on your iPhone/iPod), the file will be updated on both the next time you sync.


All in all, it's a nice app, I feel, but it's really needs some updates, and soon if there going to seriously compete with QuickOffice. This is what I would like so see:

• MobileMe iDisk access for viewing, downloading, editing and uploading files to/from my iDisk
• Additional email account access (incl. non-Exchange accounts) - as well as my work Exchange account, I want to see the option to access attachments from my personal email account (MobileMe)
• Searching for attachments in subfolders of my email accounts
• Excel editing (obviously)
• Enhancements to the doc editing - indent first line of a paragraph; edit the font type and size of text;
• Enhancements to copy/paste - use Apple's OS3.0 system-wide copy&paste to allow for pasting from other apps (notepad, email, safari etc.) or copying text to other apps (email, notepad etc); also allow for pasting/inserting images from the photo roll (or copied from Safari) into a doc
• Enhancements to file viewing - so they use Apple's inbuilt document viewer for anything other than doc files; but I would like to see them implement their own viewer with some more advanced features, i.e. the ability to "go to page", bookmark and fast scroll through a large PDF document. I have a lot of large technical books in PDF format, that I want to be able to navigate through faster than the inbuilt viewer will allow me to.

So there's my take on v1.0 of D2G. It's staying on my iPhone for now, because the email attachment access is very useful to me. Otherwise I would have stuck with QuickOffice, which has more advanced features, including iDisk access, xls editing etc.

I just hope we see more in the way of communication and support from Dataviz than we've been used to in awaiting this release.

NICE REVIEW and Write up...very informative.

I would add one more item that needs to be fixed...PASSWORD Protection!
Some documents need to just be password protected and yes I know the iPhone can be locked but being able to password protect the App would be a second protection layer.

Again, Great Job!

 

[broddo]

Unable to install desktop sync application

Well, I would love to try out Documents To Go, having used it over several years on my old Palm - now that it's out for iPhone, I got it immediately, and will now have completed the move from PC & Palm to Mac & iPhone.

However, the documents to go desktop simply will not open - I keep getting the "Application quit unexpectedly" error. I've repaired permissions, uninstalled all the old DTG software, and all the Palm software (manually) but still nothing.

The best clue I get is that in terminal an error says it quit because of "bus error" but I can't find any further information on this.

Dataviz themselves don't offer e-mail support for DTG desktop for iphone, which is very very annoying. Basically this iPhone app is useless to me now.


Anyone have any ideas?

 

[jwflutterby]

Don't bother...

I loved Docs to Go from my Treo 600 through my Centro and missed it dearly when I switched to the iPhone last summer however what they released for the iPhone is NOTHING like the DtG for Palm... The lack of Excel editing was disappointing but they say they are working on it (with their previous "available in May" statement meaning June 15 I'm not holding my breath on seeing this update anytime soon).

That isn't even my biggest complaint, the worst part is that they have implemented their own copy/paste functionality at the expense of the what is built in to the 3.0 firmware! This means that sure you can copy/paste between docs in Docs to Go but nothing else! So if you have something from another app like an email or something from the notes app you can neither copy from or paste to these other apps! I am a developer so I have happily been copying and pasting into emails and my Fliq Notes app and others with the 3.0 firmware. I tried to copy something from a Word doc in Docs to Go and paste it to an email, guess what as soon as you leave Docs to Go anything you copied is gone and unavailable.

This was particularly annoying when I was trying to troubleshoot the fact that Exchange is not working for me at all... There is a text sync log file in Docs to Go and with ANY other app on the iPhone I could have copied this text and pasted it into an email to support. Docs to Go kills the iPhone built-in copy in favor of theirs and if you copy using their function, you cannot paste that text to an email... I have a feeling later today when everyone starts getting 3.0 DataViz is going to be getting a lot more bad press!

 

[jwflutterby]

Exchange version does not seem to work with NotifyLink either...

Confirmation, DTG doesn't work with GMail. Goodle hasn't set up activesync to work with mail. DTG falls over trying to get the ID of the Inbox. So that was a wasted purchase. Still someone had to try ....

I'll add too that it does not seem to work with NotifyLink... I'm not sure how many people use this software but it allows those of us that use Novell Groupwise at work to have remote access to email. Notify updated their software so that iPhone users can select the Apple built-in Exchange email option to get push email/calendar/contacts. I bought the Docs To Go Exchange version thinking that if the iPhone apps think my NotifyLink server is an Exchange server, Docs to Go should let me email docs right? Wrong, looks like you literally have to have an Exchange 2003/2007 server for their crappy app to work.. Waste of $5 for the upgrade :

 

[str1f3]

I'm not sure why people are complaining about the desktop application. It allows you to link in different folders on your computer so that anytime you make a change in the document on your phone or computer, it will automatically sync the changes seamlessly in all locations. If you link by Http://, you'd have to physically find and replace all documents that have been altered. The time saver and organizer that D2G has provided is ingenious! That being said, I do hope that they add iDisk and additional email support in future builds.

The desktop application sucks. The reason why is that if you're away from your computer there is no way to get the documents off your iPhone so you can print it. With the web interface, you can direct people to a webpage and they can download a document. I just downloaded the app and can't believe how bad it is.

 

[odelay]

If anyone's interested - DataViz just posted on Twitter that v1.1 has been submitted:

DocsToGo v. 1.1 (iPhone/Touch) submitted for approval! System wide cut/paste, in-app email support, pinch zoom in Word

Some necessary updates there. Hopefully more to come soon.

 

[velvetelvis]

The desktop application sucks. The reason why is that if you're away from your computer there is no way to get the documents off your iPhone so you can print it. With the web interface, you can direct people to a webpage and they can download a document. I just downloaded the app and can't believe how bad it is.

i dont know if the app is bad or not, but what i really need is a way to get the doc off my phone and onto my comp without a wifi network. such as bluetooth transfer or over itunes. or make it so i can plug my phone into a printer and print from the phone, but that would need a special cable.

 

[odelay]

i dont know if the app is bad or not, but what i really need is a way to get the doc off my phone and onto my comp without a wifi network. such as bluetooth transfer or over itunes. or make it so i can plug my phone into a printer and print from the phone, but that would need a special cable.

Well you can do this if you have an Exchange email account already with the Exchange version of DTG. But if not, I can't think of any other way of doing it. They say the 1.1 update includes in-app email support, which I'm assuming will allow you to email a doc from the app itself without the need for Exchange. It remains to be seen whether you'll also be able to access attachments from your email inbox for editing though.