Quickoffice markets itself as being able to work with Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word files. It includes three programs - Quicksheet, Quickword and Quickchart - which install on the Palm and a user interface, Quickoffice Desktop which installs on your PC.

The downloading procedure was pretty straight forward without any glitches.  The installation was also similarly easy without any glitches. Instructions were clear and pretty simple to me.

Once installed on my PC, I delved into the user interface. It is relatively simple to use. There are two buttons to choose whether you want to sync an MS Word file or MS Excel file. To add a file to sync there's an 'Add Document' button; to delete a file from the sync procedure click on the file and then the 'Delete Document' button. Pretty simple. You can also organize your files by creating and editing categories. These categories will also sync onto your Palm. Drag and drop between categories is possible, as is renaming files. You can also link to your original file so that when you make a change on your Palm, your .doc or .xls file gets updated on your PC too.

So I started to sync a whole bunch of files. Simple Word files without tables, graphics, multiple sections, headers, footers, very fancy formatting or other 'complex' features used are the best to sync. Fancy formatting gets lost on your Palm. I tried to sync an Excel file with 23 sheets, 14 graphs and tens of thousands of entries. Let's just say it didn't work. My 105 page Word document with tables, imbedded pics and multiple sections also didn't sync.

Now with simple Word files, Quickoffice is great. I use it for meeting minutes at all my meetings. I simply sync a blank meeting minute Word template and during the meeting take down all the notes on the Palm. When I get back to my office, I sync and e-mail the minutes out. Of course, if everyone had Quickoffice and a Palm, I'd beam the file to everyone at the meeting!  Be aware that if you have even a simple table in Word, the table format gets lost and syncing back to the original file loses that table format too in the original.

My colleague Terry, who is in charge of the Facilities Electrical Department, tried my Palm with the Quicksheet program to try out his daily maintenance template. Previously, his staff would have go their rounds, jot down whatever they have to jot down on paper and transpose that back to Excel.  Now they can go around with a Palm and make the inputs directly. All the formulas appear to work fine on Quicksheet. I've synced some financial sheets that didn't seem to have any formula problems. Cell writing though does not spill over to the next cell, even if the next cell is empty. So if you have titles or other wording in an cell that spills over to the next cell, it won't on the Palm. You have to resize the column width on the Palm.  Multiple line text in a cell doesn't appear as well, again unless you resize the cell on the Palm.

The Quickchart feature allows you to create simple bar, line and pie charts using the data from Quicksheet. Again very useful to get quick trends and or a quick visual on the data. The chart syncs well into Excel where you fancy it up for more formal presentations.

Oh yeah, I now have a Palm m505 and have installed Quickoffice on it. Works just the same. Overall, I'd buy Quickoffice with the intent to sync simple Word and Excel files. It does offer very mobile productivity if its use is appropriate - meeting minutes, conference notes, places you don't want to take your laptop, but need a simple tool to input information. I wouldn't attempt to make the files too fancy in terms of formatting and if you use Quickoffice for an input, I'd wait to sync with Word or Excel and make all you fancy formats there. I wouldn't recommend you use it sync or edit large complex files though.