Now that a significant component of word processing, copy and paste, has made its way to the iPhone, we’re going to see a lot more word processors than we did before. We’ve already reviewed QuickOffice’s offering, but a second major player in the mobile space Dataviz has brought their app ‘Documents to Go‘ (DTG) to the App Store.

User Interface

Featuring a hard custom drawn HUD, it doesn’t look ugly neither is it pretty. The main screen shows you your local files as well as files synchronised from your desktop. There’s also a recents list for easy access. Going into one of the folders, you can arrange the files according to criteria like last modified, filename, as well as mass delete files. There’s also a search option, which unfortunately only searches through titles and not the content.

Digging into the documents itself, DTG gives you a full screen to edit your documents. You can bring up the keyboard at any time, twist it to landscape, but you can most importantly take it out of the picture at any time.

One bit I found missing, was a way to quickly skim through a document. For instance, if you’re stuck with a 50 page document, you can imagine how sore your index finger will be from all that flicking. A full length scrollbar like the Contacts app, or even a PageUp/Down guesture would have been helpful.

Editing

DTG features its own model of selecting text. You tap and hold on text to bring up the standard magnifier, which then ‘pops’ and goes into selection mode. Drag around to select text which you can then manipulate. The controls at the bottom allow you to copy or paste that text, add text formatting like bold and italics, paragraph alignment, bullets and numbering. You can swipe the controls across to reveal even more of them like indents, zoom levels. Overall the editing features have been well covered with this app.

The one serious issue that leaves me stunned, is DataViz has implemented its own form of copy and paste. You cannot invoke the standard copy and paste pop up. This means that the systemwide clipboard is NOT available to the app, neither can you copy content from the app to another app on your phone. Luckily, just before posting this review Dataviz’s PR has assured me that the global cut-copy-paste is being implemented in the next update, which is just around the corner.

Desktop Sync

DTG comes with a desktop sync app, that’s confusing at first, but I see their point. When it comes to syncing, you can only sync folders across. You specify which folders you want synced, and then press the sync button. I found it odd that I couldn’t just drag in my file into the window and have it transferred over, but realised that this is exactly the way iTunes does it. Having files linked to a folder means you have less files to worry about, especially when you’re doing this on a regular basis. Sync is fast, and efficient.

Documents: Good to Go?

I haven’t used QuickOffice’s Mobile Office Suite, so I can’t compare the two. However, I can tell you that editing a document, or creating new ones is very well implemented. Selecting text, applying formatting, etc, is surprisingly possible on this little iPhone screen.

However, I do have some gripes. First, the lack of copy-paste, which I mentioned will be fixed soon. Second, there’s no online extension to the app, which is important on a connected device like the iPhone. iDisk support would have been a welcome addition to its line of features. It’s worth noting however that there’s a $9.99 version of the app which supports Exchange Email attachments support. And lastly, why is it that every developer thinks their app is special, making a non-standard icon for the app? Submitted the app to Your Icon Is Wrong.

At $4.99, the app is well priced especially if you compare it with QuickOffice’s offering. A free update in the near future will bring in Excel creating/editing support as well (upon which the price will go up). The app can already view Excel and Powerpoint files, including those made with the latest version of Office. As always, this is a 1.0 release and we’ve seen how developers keep tacking on features based on feedback, so I have high hopes for this app.