Comments on: WordSmith 2.0 Adds Improved Fonts

Blue Nomad, LLC has announced WordSmith 2.0, which adds FineType font technology. This is a display option that makes text appear sharper. However, this works only on color devices. It also adds full bookmark support. In addition, users can preserve, edit, and create new footnotes, endnotes, and comments, and can preserve page setup (i.e., paper sizes, page orientation, margins) and default language as well. It will be available in early July for $30.
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Features

PhilM @ 6/26/2001 11:59:10 AM #
More features are usually a good thing, but what about memory/processing needs and screen real estate?
Will these extra features take up a quarter of the screen, making it difficult to edit large documents?

Hopefully, it won't. What does everyone else think?

(First comment, hurray!)

Phil M.

RE: Features
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/26/2001 12:20:20 PM #
If you used WordSmith, you'd know that there is a cool 'full screen' mode that hides both the toolbar at the bottom AND the menu bar at top, replacing them with skinny little icons above and below the scroll bar on the right of the screen.

My big question is whether 'hi-res' fonts means that they will include special fonts specifically for the 320x320 clie screens (and 240x240/320 HandEra screens) or if they only have one set of "true type" fonts for all devices (i.e. only 160x160 support)

RE: Hi-Res?
Ed @ 6/26/2001 12:24:45 PM #
They call them "hi-res" but the more I read, the less hi-res they sounded. I think they just simulate to look of high-resolution fonts. The fact that they only work on color screens and don't make any mention of the Palm models with actual hi-res screens was a big clue for me.

With this in mind, I've edited the article to remove any reference to "hi-res". I could be wrong but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trashing WordSmith 2.0. I think improving the look of fonts without changing the screens is great. I'm just trying to be accurate.

---
News Editor
Palm Infocenter

RE: Features
beats @ 6/26/2001 1:17:51 PM #
The clear-type or fine-type fonts also work on monochrome devices...they just look better on color devices. I was using the super doc trial on my Vx and it was pretty cool!

RE: font on grayscale..
beats @ 6/26/2001 2:14:23 PM #
My Bad! I thought it would be like SuperDoc, which you can use with monochrome. I guess they decided only to use this feature with color devices. Sorry!

"Hi-Res" FineType font
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/27/2001 12:11:18 AM #
Looks like they are using ClearType's sub-pixel rendering to create FineType font. If that's the case, then their use of "Hi-Res" description is legitimate. Sub-pixel rendering takes advantage of the fact that each pixel in a color display consists of 3 sub-pixels: namely RED-GREEN-BLUE. And that's why it does not work with monochrome display as there is no sub-pixel. A detailed explanation can be found here:
http://grc.com/ctwhat.htm
Basically it can "triple" the horizontal resolution, making a 5x7 font looking like a 15x7 font. And it is screen resolution independent; i.e. it should work with both Clie 320x320 and Palm/Prism's 160x160 screen.

Lawrence
lawrence@vex.net

RE: "Hi-res" Fine-Type Font
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/27/2001 3:11:24 PM #
> And it is screen resolution independent; i.e. it
> should work with both Clie 320x320 and Palm/Prism's
> 160x160 screen.

This is only true IF they support Clie's 320x320 resolution and render their sub-pixel support at THAT resolution, not doubling pixels as default apps do. SuperDoc does not work properly on a Clie because it defaults to 160x160 pixel-doubling, which doesn't resolve the color-pixels properly on the Clie.

So the app must support the Clie's hi-res to take advantage of the "ClearType"-style properties of these screens. (Note also that anti-aliasing alone still makes things look a lot better, even on mono-chrome screens.)

zane


FineType

Ed @ 6/26/2001 12:19:26 PM #
Ryan is at TECHXNY and I just asked him to take a look at this new version and see what he thinks of FineType. I'm really curious to see how much more readable they can make fonts without actually changing the resolution.

---
News Editor
Palm Infocenter
RE: FineType
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/26/2001 12:52:02 PM #
SuperDoc at http://www.codemill.net/ and MobiPocket v4 supports ClearType like fonts and look very good IMHO.



RE: FineType
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/26/2001 1:47:13 PM #
I would also be interested if he can find out whether there will be a fee for upgrading to v. 2.0 and if so what the price will be... thanks

RE: FineType
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/26/2001 2:07:03 PM #
I just bought the program for my spouse and myself (2 paid copies) last week. I will be pretty bummed out if there is not a free upgrade.

RE: FineType
Admin @ 6/27/2001 10:52:11 AM #
I did get to check out a demo of WordSmith 2.0 running on a m505. Let me tell you the FineType is nothing short of amazing, it makes a huge difference in quality and ease of reading. I think this technology will position WordSmith as a great ebook reader as well. It not only makes the fonts smooth, but really improves the appearance of italics and other forms of rich text.

After checking out the FineType I went over to the PocketPC booth to check out MS cleartype on an ipaq. I found that even with the palms low resolution that the new version of WordSmith was just as good, if not better than the MicroSoft ebook reader.

------
Ryan
Editor in Chief
webmaster@palminfocenter.com

Upgrade price?

Wilson @ 6/26/2001 1:13:17 PM #
Has anyone heard what the upgrade price will be?



RE: Upgrade price?
Blue Nomad @ 6/26/2001 2:39:45 PM #
Upgrades and updates are provided by Blue Nomad, LLC in its sole discretion. That being said, all of our upgrades to date have been free to all registered users. Version 2.0 upgrade will be a free one!

Sincerely,

Bobby Genest
Blue Nomad Software
www.bluenomad.com

Blue Nomad
www.bluenomad.com

RE: Upgrade price?
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/26/2001 5:00:36 PM #
That sounds great for the future

Andreas

RE: Upgrade price?
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/26/2001 7:38:59 PM #
That sounds great now!! :)

RE: Upgrade price?
GrouchoMarx @ 6/27/2001 2:31:17 AM #
That sounds great now and for the future. :-) I REALLY like companies that stand behind their products after the sale. Word of mouth advertising is a wonderful thing.

--Satisfied registered WordSmith user

What about clie and expansion memory?

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/26/2001 1:23:31 PM #
Is clie/handera highres and memory sticks/secure digital supported in this release? Otherwise its a very weak update. Thanks

Other feature more important

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/26/2001 1:23:43 PM #
I love WordSmith and use it every day. The feature I was hoping for was memory card support, so that I could edit/read documents from the SD Card/Memory Stick. I may hold off on upgrading (if there's a fee) until the release that supports this feature. Fonts won't add that much for me.

RE: Other feature more important
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/26/2001 1:52:47 PM #
I was waiting for that too.

RE: Other feature more important
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/26/2001 2:11:22 PM #
I don't have any trouble reading Wordsmith documents now, so the improved fonts aren't that
important to me.

What will be important to me is the ability to keep tables and images. Much of what I write
has figures. Wordsmith copies the original document, keeping it separate from the common
document used to sync between Word and the Palm. The original document retains the figures,
but the common document loses them; they aren't even in the Word version of the common
document anymore. It will be nice to have them retained and avoid keeping figures in a separate
file altogether.

Barry

RE: Other feature more important
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/26/2001 5:33:59 PM #
I would like a simple spell check to take care of my sloppy typing. Does anyone know of one that works with WordSmith?

1 MB App

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/26/2001 3:01:28 PM #
I am hoping that version 2 wont be a 1 MB app. WIth all those new features, I could just imagine the size. It is already a gorilla at about 300+K. Very useful app though. VFS Support is a must.

Better than PPC Word!

André N.Breivik @ 6/26/2001 3:42:01 PM #
Someone once said that PPC would rule because it has the pocket version's of Word & Excel built in! I don't agree at all with that, but... When Wordsmith 2.0 comes out, PPC Word will look almost as advanced as Palm's MemoPad does. When I began to loose respect for the Palm OS as a buisness-tool, superb software like WordSmith comes along. Even in version 1.12 it kick's ass. ;) If you own a PPK or Stovaway Keyboard it's superb! As a PPC Excel-killer I would choose MiniCalc. WordSmith & MiniCalc is my laptop-replacement!! What do you guys think?
RE: Better than PPC Word!
gnaihc @ 6/26/2001 4:18:46 PM #
I agree, but I like minicalc over wordsmith because minicalc supports Hires and wordsmith doesn't..

- N700c is the best -
RE: Better than PPC Word!
GKreamer @ 6/26/2001 10:06:00 PM #
I couldn't have put it better- MiniCalc and WordSmith are like having MS Office in my hand... My Palm would be far, far less valuable and useful without these. BTW, give !PZip a try, it allows you to compress PRC's and save space, I packed 20+ programs in Flash on my m505 that would have taken over 2MB in RAM. There is a brief delay when opening apps that are compressed, but it is wel worth it IMHO.

RE: Better than PPC Word!
GrouchoMarx @ 6/27/2001 1:30:31 AM #
I don't know about WordSmith's support for the CLIE, but it was one of the first apps to have support for the HandEra 330's higher resolution.

--GrouchoMarx

my poor desktop!

altema @ 6/27/2001 2:33:46 AM #
When I first tried WordSmith, I thought it would not last long because I could always type in memopad. But the program was SO well put together that I bought it anyways, even though I felt it was not a necessity. After using WordSmith for a few weeks, it was moved to my "Mission critical" list. With the addition of image retention, my poor desktop may be sitting idle for a while, and my laptop can get even more rest. Unless I need to do desktop publishing, WordSmith is all I need. Well,.. maybe an IR equipped printer would be nice...

PS: I'm not sure about the SD or Mem Stick support, But don't be too concerned. I pulled down a good sized book which is a good inch thick in paperback form, and it took less than 225k of Palm RAM.

PS: PS: Yes it's late, but I'm awake this time!

RE: my poor desktop!
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/27/2001 11:11:11 PM #
One Question.. I currently have Palm Reader, and cannot open a Peanutpress book with WordSmith. Is there a way to do so?

Hooray for Footnotes!!

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/27/2001 9:23:19 AM #
For anybody in the academic community, this was THE critical feature missing. The lack of footnote support on the first release (as well on Microsoft's Word for PPC & CE) was a genuine deal-buster!

Not only could you not add footnotes, but if there were existing footnotes on a document they would be wiped out when you brought in onto your handheld device. Even worse, the footnotes would be wiped off the original the next time you synched! (again, this was also the fatal flaw in MS Word for CE...)

If we will, in fact, now be able to preserve, add and modify footnotes, then Wordsmith has truly torn the top off this product category with its new release. I'd written to them about this in the past and they'd answered that they were working on it, but this is the first announcement I've seen that they'd achieved this essential upgrade.

If it works as advertised then Bravo! Well done!

And thank you!

Michael Pelikan

Wow.

Eston Bond @ 6/27/2001 10:07:23 AM #
This is the killer word-processing app in my opinion. It's powerful- congratulations Blue Nomad.
Eston Bond
CEO Pine Tree Software
http://www.pinetreesoftware.net/

Price for upgrade?

soul care @ 6/27/2001 10:13:18 AM #
Dose any one know the price for the upgrade from the current version?

Price for upgrade?

soul care @ 6/27/2001 10:18:44 AM #
Dose any one know the price for the upgrade from the current version?
RE: Price for upgrade?
fleegle @ 6/27/2001 10:23:39 AM #
If you scroll up to a previous post titled "Upgrade Price?", Bobby Genest from Blue Nomad says it will be a free upgrade.

RE: Price for upgrade?

altema @ 6/27/2001 10:52:14 AM #
The upgrade is no charge for registered users.

improved find feature?

Joel S. @ 6/27/2001 11:15:37 AM #
I love this WS, but my big problem is the lack of the FIND feature to search multiple docs. It works on the memo side, but not on the doc side. Hope this is one of the improvements!!!

WordPerfect Support

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/27/2001 2:40:30 PM #
I tried WordSmith a while back and it is indeed an excellent program but there were two things that kept me away.

First, it does not have native support WordPerfect, a feature I need it to have and is virtually a requirement. The ability to convert .rtf files is just not enough.

Second, unless this has changed in the recent versions, this program required a lot of free space to open a document, even a regular doc file that was not set to be edited. My Palm is always packed. And the notion that I would need significant free space on it to open and read even a doc file is somewhat of a burden. Thus I thought that the memory management of the program could use some improvement.

WS vs. Pedit

QwertyD @ 6/30/2001 1:17:45 PM #
How do WordSmith and Pedit cokpare? Should I consider trying WS? I currently use Pedit mainly for notetaking with a Stowaway keyboard. I use the indentation, font choice, and underline turn-off features.
RE: WS vs. Pedit
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/30/2001 4:32:45 PM #
it wouldnt hurt to try. Personally i like Ws better

how does it compare to P!

andy @ 6/30/2001 11:51:31 PM #
how does it compare to documents to go?
RE: how does it compare to P!
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/6/2001 7:33:23 PM #
It smokes Docs to Go. Basically, have WS will travel. I use WS with the latest version of FitalyStamp, and whole I'm still learning the stamp's layout, I can type fast enough to justify not buying a stowaway keyboard. I also use CIC's WordComplete, which I set to fill in my words that are over 6 characters in length. You can't beat this system in my opinion. Hurray for high-res! The italics on on 1.12 are a little on the rough side, 2.0 should fix that once and for all.

WHEN!!!!???
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/6/2001 7:33:23 PM #
Any word on when this badboy is going to be available?

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