About a year ago, after much back-and-forthing, I finally broke down and bought a Pocket PC--an AudioVox Maestro. Much to my surprise, I loved it, although I was vastly disappointed in the pocket edition of Microsoft Word. Sure, it could open the Word documents I was editing on my desktop computer, but it stripped out such advanced features as footnotes and even styles, dashing my hopes that it could be used for serious editing on the go.
Then, a couple of months ago, I started hearing about a Pocket PC word processor that emulated many of Word's features. Its name was TextMaker, from a company called SoftMaker. I downloaded the trial version, not really expecting it to amount to much. Boy, was I wrong. This program is so impressive I decided I had to tell you about it--not because I have any financial interest in it (I don't) but because it makes an excellent editing system for Microsoft Word documents when you're away from your desktop. (I'm using the program to write this article.)
TextMaker works very much like Word, right down to the red squiggles under misspelled words. Here's a partial list of features:
* paragraph and character styles
* footnotes and endnotes
* find and replace
* multilanguage spell checking
* thesaurus
* indexing
* tables of contents
* headers and footers
* graphics support
* hidden text
* columns
* bookmarks
* symbol characters
* frames
* merge
* tables and sorting
* borders
* automatic hyphenation
TextMaker has all this and more, on a Pocket PC, with the look and feel of Microsoft Word--only smaller! The find and replace feature even includes limited wildcard searching, and it also allows you to search for formatting (including styles) as well as text. Round-tripping between TextMaker and Word on my desktop is flawless except for one thing--TextMaker doesn't do revision tracking (it imports revisions as underline and strikethrough). Ah, well. I guess I can't expect perfection. But TextMaker comes awfully close.
You can learn more about TextMaker here:
http://www.softmaker.de/tmp_en.htm
There are three other programs that really make a Pocket PC worth having. One is Fitaly, which makes entering text a cinch. Use it with the Pocket PC's autocompletion feature and you'll understand how I was able to write this whole article using a stylus. You can learn more about Fitaly here:
http://www.fitaly.com/wince/pocketpcfitaly.htm
Another is Pocket Informant, an information manager. I use it to keep track of publishing schedules and editing tasks, and there's really no similar program that has anywhere near its flexibility and power.
http://www.pocketinformant.com/PocketInformant.php
Finally, there's the free Microsoft Reader that comes with a Pocket PC. When I bought mine, I didn't realize that one benefit would be almost instant, free access to thousands of downloadable books. There are many sources for these, but here are a couple of my favorites:
http://www.blackmask.com/page.php
http://www.bartleby.com/ebook/
Not all books are free, of course, and many nice electronic versions are well worth paying for. Check out the terrific commercial offerings (including my book Total Word Domination) at PocketPCpress:
http://www.pocketpcpress.com/
Note that you can make your own Microsoft Reader books (a nice way to review manuscripts) with a free Microsoft Word add-in that you can download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/reader/downloads/rmr.asp
Have I convinced you yet? If so, you might want to look at the beautiful e750 Pocket PC from Toshiba, which you can learn about here:
http://www.pdabuyersguide.com/toshiba_e750.htm
Don't need that much horsepower (or price)? Maybe you'd like the ViewSonic V35:
http://www.viewsonic.com/products/pocket_pc_pocketpcv35.htm
You can read about and compare lots of Pocket PCs here:
http://www.pdabuyersguide.com/ppc.htm
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RESOURCES
SoftMaker is making a very generous offer to you as a reader of Editorium Update. They're willing to *give* you a complimentary, registered copy of TextMaker for your *desktop* computer (no kidding) so you can see what this wonderful program has to offer. It has all the features of the Pocket PC version, as described above, with a current retail price of $49.95, but you'll get it at no charge and with no strings attached. This is a *great* word processor, powerful and light on its feet, and it's extremely compatible with Microsoft Word. Better get it while you can. You can learn more here:
http://www.softmaker.de/freetm.htm
Want to tell your friends? It's okay to do so, but I'd appreciate the courtesy of letting them know about Editorium Update rather than just sending them the URL above. After all, SoftMaker made their offer specifically to readers of Editorium Update. So why not help your friends become readers? Then they can take advantage of this offer too! Signing up for the newsletter is easy. Just send a blank email message to editorium-subscribe [at symbol] topica.com. Thanks for your consideration and support.
