5 sets of office applications for Android phones

When you're stuck somewhere, in the waiting room or on the train, you can do a lot of useful things with your smartphone instead of visiting social networking sites or playing bird shooting. Why not do office work?

Currently, there are many office suite for Android devices, providing users with access to data, spreadsheets and presentations. In this article, we will look at five most typical applications: Documents To Go, OfficeSuite Pro, Quickoffice Pro, Smart Office and ThinkFree Office Mobile . These are all paid applications. Although Google offers a free Android version of the Google Docs service, its capabilities are still limited. So, we will not mention this application in the article.

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All of these office suites include a word editor, spreadsheet application and presentation file maker. Each application supports Microsoft Word- compatible data files (.DOC, .DOCX), Excel (.XLS, .XLSX) and PowerPoint (.PPT, .PPTX) . Besides, all are integrated with Google Docs user accounts. For example, you can download a text document created in Google Docs into the word editor of one of these applications and edit it. They also support opening PDF files.

We consider each application with three main criteria: Users edit their data easy or difficult? How does the user interface have it in Android smartphones, especially when you use the on-screen virtual keyboard? And when entering Microsoft Office data format, is there any problem?

We tested these office suites on Motorola Triumph phones running Android operating systems; This smartphone has a 4.1-in screen that makes using these applications better when opening and editing data. If your phone has a smaller screen, the user interface of each of these applications becomes much more important.

1. Documents To Go Full Version

Supplier : DataViz

Price : $ 14.99

Other versions : Documents To Go 3.0 Main App: View data only (free).

Including Android, Documents To Go of Dataviz has many versions for 6 mobile operating system platforms, including iOS, BlackBerry and Palm OS. Dataviz also provides a free Windows application so users can sync Documents To Go files with their Android phones via USB cable. Even so, by the time this article was written, this suite has not been updated in the last 1 year.

The word processor, Documents To Go is not so striking though it is quite easy to use - just go to the Android keyboard to type the text. Touch the phone's Menu button to call up a toolbar at the bottom of the screen. It allows users to add lists of markers, numbers and tables to the text.

In the process of checking, Documents To Go could not download attached images in Word data .DOCX but downloaded images in .DOC files.

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The Documents To Go presentation application is quite basic: Only slides where you use black text with a white background. In other words, this application is only a means to use when creating a simple slide show to later import PowerPoint for further editing. So it should come as no surprise that some of the .PPT format files we tested could not be downloaded, even though it was successfully downloaded in .PPTX format.

Spreadsheet applications are similar - only basic spreadsheets are available. You interact with it completely via the Menu button to call out a toolbar. With it, the user can enter a formula to calculate or data, select a column or line, display or edit other sheets. This application works well although there is no nice interface. You will have to touch the Menu button many times if you are creating a spreadsheet file from scratch because there is no toolbar displayed on the screen.

Although this spreadsheet application supports charts but does not display charts or other images in Excel files (both .XLS and .XLSX).

Documents To Go does not provide many recent features with the Android app. There is no pinch-and-zoom function to enlarge or shrink a data, spreadsheet or slide show. Instead, double-tap the screen to call the zoom-in / zoom-out tool. In addition, you must touch the Menu , View , Zoom and finally buttons to choose a more accurate size (between 25% and 200%).

Cut, copy and paste are also quite expensive. First, you need to touch the Menu button of the phone, select Edit and select Select . Soon, there will be a tool for users to highlight the text by tapping it twice. Next, you need to tap on Menu - Edit , choose Copy or Cut . Paste the text also requires a series of touches.

summary

Although this suite of applications supports several platforms, Documents To Go has an eye-catching user interface and is only partially compatible with Microsoft Office format.

2. OfficeSuite Pro 5

Supplier : Mobile Systems

Price : $ 14.99

Other versions : OfficeSuite Pro 5 (30 day trial). OfficeSuite Viewer 5: Only supports open data ($ 4.99).

Like Documents To Go, OfficeSuite Pro supports several mobile operating system platforms and other devices outside of Android, including iPhone, BlackBerry and Palm OS. Manufacturer Mobile Systems offers a variety of dictionary modules for users to use in this suite, including foreign languages ​​and medical specialized dictionaries.

Although OfficeSuite can access your Google Docs account, but like the other 4 sets of applications in this article, it does not display your Collections (the names of the folders in Google Docs). Instead, OfficeSuite will list all Google Docs data at the same time, bringing a sense of messy lack of organization.

OfficeSuite is friendly about how it displays data. For example, when the user finishes downloading the data, the lower part of it will display with a large size and easier to read. Most of the applications in this article require you to zoom in to the appropriate data to read or edit it.

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In fact, when compared to other suite of applications, OfficeSuite's word processor has more features in the word processing desktop application, including paragraph alignment, font style, list button or number, . The only outstanding application suite is the ThinkFree Mobile Office, which has features similar to OfficeSuite's collection and includes an additional feature that OfficeSuite doesn't have - support for column.

Microsoft Word data in both formats .DOC or .DOCX is displayed exactly the attached photos.

OfficeSuite's spreadsheet application is also more attractive and effective than Documents To Go. For example, spreadsheet single sheets are set up as tabs at the bottom of the screen. So, users can touch a tab to switch to that sheet. In addition to spreadsheet functions, there are still table creation tools that are very useful.

However, like Documents To Go, OfficeSuite's spreadsheet application cannot transfer other tables or images embedded in Excel .XLS or .XLSX files.

Both word processing applications and spreadsheet applications have a toolbar that appears at the end, you can scroll horizontally to access functions like formatting text, adding formulas, . Maybe many people will like this toolbar because it does not interfere with the view when viewing data - even when holding the phone horizontally. When using word processors, the way this toolbar is arranged on the screen keyboard allows us to access formatting and editing functions more easily.

Other features are also easier to work with than the rest of the applications. For example, to cut, copy and paste, you have to touch twice a word to highlight it, tap the phone's Menu button and select Edit from the on-screen menu.

Application to create presentation files of OfficeSuite includes 9 template background colors to help you apply them to your slide show, some of them look professional enough to use for business. However, you cannot adjust the font or background color of the slide. This slideshow application loads successfully with many types of Power Point files when tested.

summary

Thanks to the toolbar, OfficeSuite Pro has a great word processing application, with most of the features, compared to the rest of the applications. Due to the trial version, you can use it freely for 30 days, it is worth checking.

3. Quickoffice Pro

Supplier : Quickoffice

Price : $ 14.99

Other versions : Quickoffice Pro HD: tablet version ($ 19.99). Quickoffice Pro Trial: 7 day trial.

Quickoffice Pro supports Android, iPhone and Symbian OS smartphones. It has an advantage in the competition thanks to a long list of supported cloud storage services - allowing easy downloading of data on Box.net, Dropbox, Google Docs, Huddle, MobileMe or SugarSync into the application of me

Or, Quickoffice Pro's application offers some features that other Android apps don't have. However, it also lacks some basic features. For example, word processors do not support headers, footers, list, bullet or even text formats. On the other hand, both word processor and the slideshow application allow users to take photos with the phone's camera and give it the data or slide they are creating.

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When starting the word processor, the font size displayed looks smaller on the 4.1-in screen. of the phone we are using. So we have to pinch-and-zoom to adjust it to the right size before typing. On the other hand, all word data loaded into this word processor is displayed correctly, even with the accompanying photos.

The slideshow application supports a set of 8 shapes, including square, oval and arrow to paste into the slide. Users can change the color of text, shapes and backgrounds in slides. Our Power Point files (both .PPT and .PPTX) are loaded correctly with images and graphic structures in them.

The Quickoffice spreadsheet interface is designed similar to OfficeSuite Pro, with separate sheets arranged into tabs at the bottom of the screen. Features include a minimum set of standards, allowing adding columns, data, formulas, rows and adjusting borders and fonts.

Quickoffice has a toolbar (access via the Menu button) that runs at the end of the word editor, spreadsheet and presentation, allowing you to scroll horizontally to access editing functions. This toolbar may be smaller than the ideal tool to touch and switch between options. Besides, we also want it to always appear on the screen instead of disappearing after we select some tools. We also have to touch the Menu button repeatedly to access the regular toolbar every time we work with data, spreadsheets or slide shows.

The process of highlighting text to cut, copy and paste is a bit difficult to implement, but it may still be more intuitive than Documents To Go and OfficeSuite Pro methods. You just need to double-tap a word or image to highlight it; then the toolbar will display in the pop-up form above or below the selected item with the cut, copy and paste buttons. The problem is that this toolbar is quite small; We think it will be faster and easier to perform cut / paste tasks if it is slightly larger.

Spreadsheet applications can download Excel files (.XLS and .XLSX) with attached tables, something that neither Documents To Go nor OfficeSuite Pro do.

summary

Quickoffice Pro supports a lot of cloud storage services, but its word editor lacks the features available in OfficeSuite Pro (same price). Like OfficeSuite Pro, Quickoffice Pro also has a trial version, allowing free use for 7 days.

4. Smart Office

Supplier : Picsel

Price : $ 9.95

Other versions : None

There is also a version for iOS and Symbian devices, Smart Office has a certain focus on the user interface. The central part of this suite is the page-surfing feature, which displays thumbnails of pages contained in the data (or spreadsheet sheets). These thumbnail photos are arranged in the form of carousels, similar to the way iTunes displays covers of albums. This is really great and very useful - surfing through pages or sheets is smooth and fast.

Along with accessing Google Docs files, Smart Office is the second office suite for Android 2 out of 5 applications mentioned in this article that allows users to download data from Dropbox account directly into Smart Office.

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To create new data, you just touch the thumbnail of the template, some of which already have pre-created items. For word processing applications, there are templates to write business letters or report data. Slide show templates only - you have a choice between light or dark background themes. However, two of the spreadsheet templates have built-in useful functions to help track your data.

The spreadsheet application sets up a single sheet into tabs at the bottom of the screen, so when you touch them the user will feel like interacting with the tabbed interface of the browser. Among the spreadsheet applications mentioned in this article, Smart Office brings speed to users - when surfing through a sheet, scrolling is also smooth and fast. When you edit or add data to a cell, a toolbar appears at the bottom of the screen with buttons for editing formats (like alignment, numbers or text), adding or removing columns or line and add formulas.

In the slideshow application, you can choose 14 different shapes (arrows, squares or stars). The user interface also helps this application take advantage of the rest: A thumbnail of slides in a slideshow is displayed and runs along the edge of the screen; You can also quickly scroll horizontally and touch each thumbnail to access the slide.

Despite these great features, Smart Office's word processor doesn't have as many features as OfficeSuite Pro or Document To Go. Users can only adjust font properties (color, size, style, type), insert numbers and bulleted lists. Like Quickoffice Pro, users can use the phone's camera to take a picture and insert it into their data (not available in slide shows like Quickoffice allows).

Smart Office downloads all the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files that we open, accurately managing the attached photos (for example, photos, charts, .)

We like how Smart Office deploys a set of texts and graphics to cut, paste and move. You just double-tap the paragraph or graphic and it is highlighted. A toolbar will open at the bottom of the screen, allowing you to cut, copy and paste. To drag and move a paragraph or image to another area of ​​the data, tap and drag the hand icon (to limit the frame or paragraph). No other office suite in this article has such features to help move.

summary

Smart Office has a nice, very useful interface and it has an advantage over other Android applications in this article thanks to its ability to support the selection and move of selected user items.

5. ThinkFree Office Mobile

Supplier : Hancom

Price : $ 9.99

Other versions : ThinkFree Mobile for Tablet: Tablet version ($ 9.99). ThinkFree Office Mobile Viewer: Only supports data opening (free).

Unlike other applications in this article, ThinkFree Office Mobile only supports the Android platform. This application has some advantages over its competitors. ThinkFree Mobile can not only access files in your Google Docs account, but Hancom is ahead of its time by offering users 2GB of free storage in the cloud.

ThinkFree Mobile's outstanding feature is how to manage images. This suite has a drawing tool, which allows users to draw freely. You can adjust the line width, line color and background color. The drawing can be pasted into presentation text, spreadsheet or slide show data. The tool also supports 64 different shapes, such as arrows, circles, polygons, icons such as crescent moon, heart shape and star shape.

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Like Quickoffice Pro and Smart Office , ThinkFree allows users to take photos with the phone's camera. It is also the only application that allows this feature to be used in all 3 main applications - you can insert images into presentation data, spreadsheet files or slide shows. This feature, along with the drawing tool, makes creating ThinkFree presentation files the best current application.

Another useful feature: the keyboard icon is located in the bottom right corner of the word editor screen, spreadsheet and presentation application; This icon will call the virtual keyboard of your Android phone (or, when you are using a slide show application as a numeric keypad).

ThinkFree's word processing application is comparable to OfficeSuite Pro's application in terms of features, and it is the only application in this article that supports columns. Despite adding this feature, we prefer to use OfficeSuite Pro word processor by the toolbar of this suite and its location on the keyboard. ThinkFree's toolbar is placed on top of the screen, so accessing it manually is not easy.

Like the Smart Office, ThinkFree's spreadsheet software sets the sheets tab at the top of the screen. A toolbar similar to the word processor is placed on the tab and there are buttons to adjust the font, insert images, edit cell attributes and filter data. It's just a set of basic features of a spreadsheet application; The interface of this application depends heavily on the numeric keypad to enter formulas and numbers into the boxes.

In addition, similar to Quickoffice Pro and Smart Office, the 4.1 beta version of ThinkFree is also successful in downloading all Microsoft Office data - displaying pictures in Word data, charts in Excel spreadsheet files and graphs. Sketch in PowerPoint slides.

ThinkFree has an intuitive cut and paste process and best of all the applications in this lesson: You just need to double-tap a word or image to highlight it; Then there will be a compact menu that appears with options like Copy , Cut , Delete , Select all , . In other words, everything is completed by touching the paragraph or what you need directly, not on the Menu button or the toolbar on the screen.

summary

ThinkFree Office Mobile 4.1 provides a powerful set of features and a well-designed user interface. This is the right choice if you plan to use your Android phone to present the presentation.

6. Conclusion

If your first choice is to find an office suite to edit documents, try OfficeSuite Pro. Word processing applications have a lot of formatting features and are also easy to use thanks to the way of placing the toolbar (placed on the screen keyboard for easier access).

Smart Office has a nice user interface, including its page surfing feature. The method of moving text and images in data is also excellent. This will be a good choice if you only need to see your office data.

However, for finding applications that are compatible with all Microsoft Office files, especially when you plan to create and edit presentations, use ThinkFree Mobile. For a price of $ 9.99, this is the cheapest set of applications in this article. It also has the best cut / copy and paste interface here. In general, you may encounter difficulties and challenges when playing games on smartphones, not just editing office data.