This question has (to my best knowledge) never been addressed in its own thread. I want to use the Xoom (or any other laptop-substitute for that matter) to edit Word and Excel documents, look at presentations on a screen instead of print outs, make last minute changes etc. Maybe take notes during meetings/presentations... you get the idea. It might also be used as multimedia device.
Now, with the currently available accessories (I really like the idea of a case with integrated bluetooth keyboard) is this a reasonable expectation of the Xoom?
Thanks for all your opinions!
I'm not using a bluetooth keyboard but using docs to go with pretty good success. I get an error loading to gdocs but it still does the upload. Some advanced excel functions and word formatting are not the but its decent. The powerpoint part of docs to go is garbage. I have also been using repligo for annotating pdf files and it is very slick well worth the 4.99.
I am trying to use my xoom in place of all the paper docs i used to print and take to meetings. Also signed up to beta test the swiftkey tablet keyboard to see if that works better than this stock honeycomb one.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA App
Thanks! I'll keep on looking; if not for the Xoom then at least for my Nook
Related
So there are a couple Powerpoint Apps for the Xoom. Unfortunately, like allot of Office Suites there is some rendering and formatting issues when it comes to Powerpoint Documents. So if you are looking for an app to deliver your Powerpoints on, you might have to look elsewhere because they most likely won’t look the same. Unfortunately there isn’t allot of options out there, in fact I couldn’t find any. Please someone prove me wrong . However I have been going through a couple solutions. One solution is one I use at work because formatting problems even occur going across different Microsoft Powerpoint versions. So we convert to PDF and then present with a PDF viewer in fullscreen. An app like this doesn’t seem to exist yet. Again please someone prove me wrong . I dug a little deeper and came up with this Workaround. You can save your Powerpoint as Pictures on your computer. Its very easy in Microsoft Powerpoint and then you can load them in a folder on the Xoom and use the stock Gallery App to view them. And you know what… It Works!!! It has a very nice full-screen effect works great on the projector, and really isn’t too many additional steps. Its not the best thing in the world. But if you want to deliver powerpoint on your Xoom without worry about format getting messed up, this is a workable solution for now. I apologize if this was already suggested on the Xoom forum, I didn't come across it. I have a video also showing this in action.
I mentioned that in a very early thread but not as detailed. I also posted a comprehensive comparison between three different office suites (will post links later). Downside with PDF conversion is that animations are lost and I am not sure that the PDF rendering on the Xoom is 100% accurate.
[sent with Xooming Android technology]
Actually docs to go is much better at displaying power point then quick office pro. Ironically I had docs to go first. Then I bought the xoom and found that the native quickoffice app was better and accurately displaying excel compared to Docs to Go so when I got an email about quickoffice hd pro for tablets I was all over it. Excel was wonderful. Then today I had a presentation in a meeting and I thought great I'll play the slides on my xoom. It was a video conference. Anyway the slides were aweful. Formatting was a mess even on simple slides. I thought maybe it was a bug in quickoffice hd pro and tried the regular quckoffice. Same results. Finally I tried Docs to Go and low and behold the pages were perfect.
BTW word also displays more correctly in quickoffice then in Docs to go. Looks like the quickoffice guys just dropped the ball big time on power point. I'd say that Doc's to Go is better all around office program.
ethion said:
Actually docs to go is much better at displaying power point then quick office pro. Ironically I had docs to go first. Then I bought the xoom and found that the native quickoffice app was better and accurately displaying excel compared to Docs to Go so when I got an email about quickoffice hd pro for tablets I was all over it. Excel was wonderful. Then today I had a presentation in a meeting and I thought great I'll play the slides on my xoom. It was a video conference. Anyway the slides were aweful. Formatting was a mess even on simple slides. I thought maybe it was a bug in quickoffice hd pro and tried the regular quckoffice. Same results. Finally I tried Docs to Go and low and behold the pages were perfect.
BTW word also displays more correctly in quickoffice then in Docs to go. Looks like the quickoffice guys just dropped the ball big time on power point. I'd say that Doc's to Go is better all around office program.
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Sounds like an embarrasing situation with ppt and quickoffice. You should report that to them!
I have a seemjngly endless collection of ebooks in .pdf format that i have been trying forever to convert to the .pub format for easy reading, and also (please forgive me for this and don't flame) in the style of I books on the I pad (which the Asus reader does very well, with the page turning animations and all)
My problem is this... when I use calibre to convert the .pdf document to the .epub format, certain characters like apostraphies or even quotation marks end up turning out like a square with an x in it... almost as though there was a problem transcoding the document. The page turn animation is all there, but the formatting has been lost and is nothing like the source material at all...
If anyone else has run into this at all, please share with me your solutions for getting the desired result. Alot of these books were digital downloads from either the publisher of the books I own, or strategy guides from either ign or Brady games...
Thanks for all the help that, hopefully, I am about to receive.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App
I am reading my .pdf files in Polaris Office. Found it the best experience, even though two big issues: no jump to page, no pdf bookmarks (got to re-create my own). But the zoom, fonts, smooth page transitions are great.
I do not have a good program to convert .pdf to .epub. I found when I tried to read .epub I created myself the Asus TF programs complain about some potential security issues and will not work.
I've tried several, but there's one which really stands out from the crowd. Calibre can convert from a wide variety of formats, it can do batch converts, and is quite intelligent about the way it reformats the text to fit the destination device. I had some trouble originally which came down to problems with the Asus reader application, but on the Honeycomb 3.1 build they are perfect. I have converted literally thousands of books (suprisingly quickly too) and am loving it. You can get it at calibre-ebook.com. Hope this helps.......
Give this one a try...
http://ebook.online-convert.com/convert-to-epub
If you guys haven't tried it out yet, eZPDF Reader is by far the best PDF reader on Android. Supports page cache (thank the lord), super cool page turn animations, speedy overall performance, really nice user interface/page selector thats always available.
It was free about a month ago off Amazon appstore.
Sounds like you need Calibre... it should take care of all your converting needs.
calibre-ebook.com/
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
I am considering buying one of these but would like to try it out in a store before I buy it. Does anyone know of a US retailer that stocks them?
I am mostly curious about the following things:
1) How good is it for taking notes in college/university classes? Can you rest your palm on the screen while using the stylus?
2) Is there a way to view the notes taken on pdf on a computer?
3) Is it pretty solid feel wise? Or does it feel like it will fall apart after a couple years?
4) How much bloatware comes on it and is it hard to remove via rooting?
5) Does the screen go dark enough for comfortable reading in dimly lit rooms?
Thanks for the info.
the notes are great, I use Quill, as it works nearly perfect, in the app i have turned on pen input only and jot tons and tons of notes all day long.
You can export the notes to various files, while im not sure about PDF there is certainly a format that can be read on your desktop
Like all lenovo products i've had its built to last like an enterprise system should be. as long as you take care of it it will last a long time past EOL
Bloatware isnt too bad, theres still some stuff lenovo managed to get into the system pretty deep (like the status bar wheel widget thing.) but its never bothered me that much as it only comes up at the home screen.
screen brightness works great in dim rooms, i tend to read books by a small lamp in bed most of the time with minimal strain.
I purchased mine from lenovo direct so I dont know about any local retailers.
Thanks for the info. However when I asked about notes on PDFs I should have clarified a bit. I was asking about their PDF viewer that lets you take notes on the PDF document and weather that can be exported to something useful.
Also I thought of one more thing: If I have my notes backed up with something like spideroak, can the notes be converted on a computer? I ask because I am worried about taking a semesters worth of notes on it then having it die and there being no way to read them without getting a new tablet.
FearTheCron said:
Thanks for the info. However when I asked about notes on PDFs I should have clarified a bit. I was asking about their PDF viewer that lets you take notes on the PDF document and weather that can be exported to something useful.
Also I thought of one more thing: If I have my notes backed up with something like spideroak, can the notes be converted on a computer? I ask because I am worried about taking a semesters worth of notes on it then having it die and there being no way to read them without getting a new tablet.
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ezPDF allows you to fill out pdf forms, underline, strikeout, and add freehand drawings as well as circles/squares/etc. It should do what you're looking for.
https://market.android.com/details?id=udk.android.reader&feature=search_result
and if you have the file saved as a pdf on your sd card you should be able to open it with any pdf reader (pc or otherwise).
The quill note taking app he mentioned allows you to export your notes to sdcard pdfs
Thanks for the info.
One last thing: has anyone used connect bot or another ssh client on this? I am curious if the keys on the keyboard folio such as escape quotes tild and whatnot all send the proper characters. I had a bluetooth keyboard for my N1 a while back that sent some weird unicode characters for the quotes making terminal usage very difficult.
https://market.android.com/details?id=berserker.android.apps.sshdroid&hl=en
I have used SSH droid with WINSCP worked like a charm, I'm by no means an experienced user with SSH, i just used it to dig around the file system.
SSH droid is a server for the android device, I am asking about using a client on the android device.
My bad, I left my brain at home today... I will test it for you this evening and let you know if the client works with the keymapping
Cool thanks, I look forward to hearing your results.
Update: I just ordered one, so if its too much of a bother don't worry about testing the connect bot thing. My shiny object syndrome overwhelmed my frugal side. Can't wait to get my hands on it.
It works like a charm tested with Moba SSH home 1.22 and connect bot, all the keys from the folio map properly and I haven't seen anything odd at this point, also SSH'd into a couple of Access points over my VPN at work with the TPT to test as well.
Congrats on the TPT! you're gonna love it!
Unfortunately the keys do not map properly, escape is still connected to "back" in the android os and ctrl is connected to "menu". Does anyone know if there is some way to map these to their proper functions?
Thanks
S
This is using the app Onlive Desktop, available in the market but daftly "not compatible"
Alternative download links near the bottom of this android police page:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/0...-and-more-hands-on/#download-and-availability
OK so download the app from android police.
go to the onlive website, sign up for an account, ignore the USA only nonsense, it works fine in uk.
install the app, sign in, and you get, windows desktop with Office.
you can minimise, resize windows, spell check works, its fast and smooth and the most awesome app i have ever seen - it ROCKS
You need to pay $5 per month for internet explorer but Office is free with 2gb dropbox storage.
Pics attached!!!!!!
wow. That's cool. Works well.
Anyone have it working with the keyboard dock??
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium
Keyboard dock works perfectly.
The back key works like the ESC button in excel for example.
shortcuts work in word too.
The 2gb storage is not dropbox btw, its onlive's own servers. There is only 1 save place in the app which auto syncs with their cloud storage on the onlive servers, which is not connected to your transformers file structure.
So to open apps on your computer you have to go to:
http://files.onlive.com where you login again and use a web interface to upload, download, delete, rename.
I did this in dolphin browser - you cant do this from within the app, you have to use an alternate browser.
Makes it a bit harder to keep all your files synced etc but i think they are working on improving the storage / saving relationship so it will be like ubuntu and share your data - who knows if or when though!
only thing i have found missing - no macros in excel, you cant open the VBA coding pages or bring up a macro tab or recording ability. not the end of the world but would have been nice!
website interface pic attached:
how did you get the dock to work?
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium
not sure what you mean? Is your dock not doing anything at all in Onlive?
I just started typing and using the trackpad, nothing special, it was always working.
try restarting or maybe unplugging and replugging your dock into the tablet to see if that does it.
Got it to work had to uninstall the app and reinstall
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium
I wish there was a way to change the keyboard language then its will be perfect
Well, you can change the language allright (I tried Word in french) but the keyboard layout seems to be impossible to enable... so as much as I like the concept, this app is useless for me, as I just can't type in french...
Must be the reason why it is not available in my country, according to the Market.
Does networking work on it? Is there any way to get another browser on it without having to pay for IE?
It's nice but the novelty wears off pretty quick IMO. The features are too limited. I would rather use splashtop to stream my own win 7.
horndroid said:
It's nice but the novelty wears off pretty quick IMO. The features are too limited. I would rather use splashtop to stream my own win 7.
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Agree Nice to have a familiar page to work on, but unless you have wifi access it is useless. Several other tools offer many of the functions, without the strings attached. Also company not clear about security of your saved docs.
The transformer is compatible if you install by going to market.android.com in your browser and pushing the install to your device. Weird, but it works.
Sweeny Russ said:
The transformer is compatible if you install by going to market.android.com in your browser and pushing the install to your device. Weird, but it works.
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It should be compatible from the market on the tablet that's how I got it.
External mouse seems to work OK but the right-click was not working properly (at all). Scroll wheel wasn't working either.
If anyone is paying for the plus features can you install programs on it?
I heard you can but that would be awesome if you could use steam or something or install onlive.. (lol)
It might be a really limited version of windows 7 but if you can install programs that's pretty cool. I have a macbook unfortunately so I think it's really cool being able to play around with windows 7 even if it's not full featured. And to give onlive credit. Quite a few of those "touch screen" tablet like windows 7 devices run around $1,000 or so. I've played with a few at the MS Store. Not everyone might have a use for this but I'l sure some will and it's just really cool to be able to do.
I too would only be interested in this if I can use some of my familiar windows apps, like photoshop and after effects..that would be the only reason if onlive can get these apps installed and working on my TF, otherwise I will stick with splashtop and just remote to my home-based PC.
luna_c666 said:
I too would only be interested in this if I can use some of my familiar windows apps, like photoshop and after effects..that would be the only reason if onlive can get these apps installed and working on my TF, otherwise I will stick with splashtop and just remote to my home-based PC.
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Then OnLive will have to pay Adobe a ton of licensing fee, which will be passed down to the users, or resort to using advertisements.
Either way, I am not willing to pay a fee or deal with advertisements to use programs that I already have(not gonna say own, lol) on my personal computer.
i have just used word and excel to prep a finance report, works fine. Bit slower and clunkier than doing it on a PC, but if you dont have a PC and therefore cannot use splashtop then this is a decent solution.
i needed to use both word and excel, you just cannot do that in polaris - it only allows 1 type of document open at once so you can flick between the two.
i tried using kingsoft office but you cant even do bullet points in its word, and its excel cant even do formulas lol
so for me to use word and excel, onlive is the only way and it worked fine, even if a bit slower than an actual PC.
thumbs up from me!
TPT users - I have been considering this tablet for some time. I am a huge MS Onenote user and I have been looking for an alternative to my tablet PC. I tried the HTC flyer, but the pen recognition was not that great. (At times it was like writing with a pen that was running out of ink.) My question is if anyone has experience using the TPT for note taking and then getting the inked notes into onenote for easy use in onenote? I would love to wiat for the Samsung Note 10" but it appears that date keeps getting pushed back and need a solution soon.
I have the View - essentially the same tab - and the pen recognition is great. Bad battery perhaps or perhaps not using the right note program there are several really great ones out there - LectureNotes, Quill, and many others. You can also use a TPT pen on the Flyer, and vice versa. I have used OneNote on the TPT but not often yet. Getting too many other great note taking results with text conversion when I want.
Check out the app 7Notes for HWR. Love it. Also MyScript Stylus, but more expensive.
Thanks
I appreciate the response. I actuallly sent my original flyer back to try a second unit. They both seemed to suffer from not registering all the pen marks consistently over the entire screen.
I used both LectureNotes and Quill. I liked them both better than the default note taking app, but the issue I had was getting the notes organized. That is why I love Onenote. I tried to move over to Evernote and used the export function on those notetaking apps to get them to work well together, but I was unhappy with all the extra steps and OneNote inking of notes was not as fluid either.
My hope is that by the time the Samsung Note 10" launches, MS will include the inking capabilities into the Android version of Onenote and I will be a happy camper.
How did you use Onenote on your TPT.
LOL Didn't use it. Logged in with Splashtop and used it remotely on my pc.