Send and Receive Office Documents as Email Attachments

Posted By: Ed Tuesday, April 16, 2002 1:50:02 PM

Today, Cutting Edge Software has announced that users of Corsoft’s Aileron wireless email application now have the ability to send and receive Quickoffice documents and spreadsheets with their wireless devices. Aileron's service will automatically convert the Quickoffice files into Microsoft Office ones and vice versa.

Individuals can subscribe to Corsoft’s e-mail service for $30 a year. Thanks to a special going on until the end of April, Quickoffice is $30. A bundle of the two is available on Handango for $50.

One of the key challenges faced by companies deploying Palm OS handhelds is the conversion of files from MS Excel and MS Word, the industry standard spreadsheet and word processing applications for desktop PCs, to formats usable on a Palm OS handheld.

With today's introduction, users of Excel and Word are able to e-mail spreadsheets and documents to users of Palm OS devices with Quickoffice installed – and the files will be convert to Quickoffice formats during transmission. Likewise, Quickoffice users will be able to email spreadsheets and documents to MS Office users, and the files will automatically be converted to the appropriate format for viewing and editing on desktop PCs.

Corporations can install an enterprise-edition of Aileron Server on their corporate network and get end-to-end security of the information being transmitted via the handheld devices. Corsoft Aileron Enterprise Server starts at $2,500 and includes a five-user Client Access License. Additional licenses are available at $500 for a 10-set license pack.

About the Quickoffice Suite
Quickoffice includes the Quickword word processor, which has built-in custom font support and an integrated spell-checking engine and thesaurus.

Quicksheet has support for the Sony Clié's hi-res display. It has over 80 built-in spreadsheet functions and can synchronize its files with Microsoft Excel. The suite also includes Quickchart, a charting and graphing tool that comes with Quicksheet.

All of these come with Windows-only conduits that allow files to be converted to their Microsoft Office equivalents during each HotSync.

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HandEra 330

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/16/2002 3:11:13 PM #

QuickOffice has full support for ALL HandEra special features (fonts, full screen & rotate).

Bill McKelvey

Sony Clié support

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/16/2002 3:44:11 PM #

What about the support of Sony Clié features?
Especially the high resolution (useful for sheets) and the jog dial?

RE: Sony Clié support

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/16/2002 3:55:17 PM #

"Quicksheet has support for the Sony Clié's hi-res display."

Please RTA (read the article) and then post.

RE: Sony Clié support

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/16/2002 4:10:44 PM #

OOPS!! Should put my glasses on.
Sorry, I didn't see that part.

It's probably already too late in this part of the world (Belgium!) and I should be in bed! :-)

Will we ever be able to load/save from card?

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/16/2002 3:59:13 PM #

I really like QuickOffice, but it sure would be nice if we could just be able to import/export from some standard format of file from card. Even just text, rtf or html for QuickWord, and even just a commma, tab, whatever delineated format (or maybe something nicer) for QuickSheet. I'd pay for that kind of upgrade. I have no interest in this paid subscription type stuff.

RE: Will we ever be able to load/save from card?

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/16/2002 4:14:01 PM #

I was told that they are beta testing their VFS support for expansion cards and that it will be out VERY soon... i can hardly wait!!

RE: Will we ever be able to load/save from card?

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/16/2002 4:22:39 PM #

Yeah, but what does VFS support mean? Just reading/writing QuickOffice Palm databases from card? That isn't what I want, though it'll be OK. I want to just be able to keep the document on card and pull it out and stick it in my laptop. Always be editing the same file on the card, that I can keep in my pocket, without having to sync. I mean QuickWord basically does HTML currently anyhow. Why don't they add support to read/write HTML files from card?

RE: Will we ever be able to load/save from card?

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/16/2002 8:33:50 PM #

That was the original intent of WordSmith (.rtf format), but apparently it turned out that they felt current Palm's just didn't have the horsepower for that. Might be nice if they'd revisit it on ARM.

CF2DOC is about as close as you can get (intermediate app that reads card based text files and turns them into RAM based DOC's and vice versa)

RE: Will we ever be able to load/save from card?

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/16/2002 8:57:05 PM #

> they felt current Palm's just didn't have the horsepower for [RTF].

I find that difficult to believe. Wordsmith already does more and takes more horsepower on the Palm than it would take to do RTF.

Images, etc?

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/16/2002 4:33:59 PM #

OK, here's a quick question though (and I'd try this, but my demo ran out):

With some of the native image viewers out there (Photo gather, Acid Image, etc.), would you be able to also receive images as attachments? In other words, will Aileron download the attachment, regardless of whether or not it is a Word or Excel file? If it did, then one of these 3rd party viewers would work.

As an aside, I'd REALLY love the same kind of functionality (on device conversion of wireless files) for Acrobat and Power Point files. These formats are major components of digital document swapping, usually through email. Then I probably could really leave my laptop at home.

RE: Images, etc?

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/22/2002 4:55:25 AM #

No images are not supported yet but the support team said it is planned (maybe the problem is that there is a variety of formats and viewing software...).
Anyway, be realistic, the software is aimed to be used low-bandwith connexion (cellphone), so at the moment Acrobat and PowerPoint files would be very hard to download on a palm device... And Corsoft may have to pay for the licences also...
BTW, this software is the best I've used so far. I bought it and I am extremely satisfied w/ it. Support is also VERY responsive.

AML

I want eFax support

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/16/2002 5:33:54 PM #

We receive all faxes in our office by eFax. That's great when you are in your office or when you have a laptop. But it's horrible when you have nothing other than a Palm, in which case you just get an e-mail notification that you've received a fax, which you can't view. I would love a converter to turn the eFax into something that can be viewed on the Palm. If someone had that service, I'm there!

JBH

RE: I want eFax support

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/17/2002 9:14:52 AM #

If eFax would convert your faxes into pdf versus its own proprietary viewer format, then you could view them on your Palm. I'm an eFax user too, and would love that. Using Aileron, I could then receive and edit Word and Excel files in Quickoffice and people could send me faxes too...no matter where I'm at. That would be so cool. Then I could really do all my work from the beach.
:)

Not as seamless

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/18/2002 3:38:15 AM #

Downloaded the trial version yesterday. I receive e mail fine but cannot open the word attachment. I don't seem to be able to send e mails with word attachments either as I get a 'contact support' error message.

E mail to Corsoft hasn't solicited a response. What gives???