The right office apps for the Android at work

In the mobile world, it used to be that “BlackBerry” was synonymous with “business.” These days, though, more workers are trading in their RIM smartphones for more modern alternatives — and given the shifting state of the smartphone market, that means devices based on Google’s Android OS are increasingly suiting up for the job.

Android phones saw the largest jump in enterprise adoption among all smartphone platforms last year, according to a recent study released by Forrester Research. The report, which revolves around a survey of business executives in the United States and Europe, finds business use of Android growing by 550 percent from 2009 to 2010. Although Android’s total is still relatively small, at 13 percent of the overall pie, its climbing figure shows the platform is no longer just for pleasure.

Of course, an Android smartphone straight out of the box doesn’t have everything you need to stay productive on the road, and finding the right suite of Office-like applications can take some time-consuming trial and error. That’s why I delved into the various options: to help find the best productivity suite for your Android smartphone.

I tested four Android office suites: DataViz’s Documents to Go, which costs $15 for the full premium version (needed for most features), MobiSystems’ $15 OfficeSuite Professional, Quickoffice’s $10 QuickOffice Connect Mobile Suite, and ThinkFree Mobile’s $15 ThinkFree Office Mobile. Note that prices are subject to change, and often do.

I also compared these suites to the Google Docs mobile Web app (Google has thus far not made Docs available as a native Android application). Microsoft’s Office Web Apps suite doesn’t support mobile-based editing of documents, so I didn’t include it in this comparison.

For each tool, I broke down how each contender handled word processing, spreadsheet editing, and presentation management. I then considered what you’d need to accomplish other basic office tasks, such as dealing with PDF documents and Photoshop files. Finally, I put it all together to recommend the best overall package for your Android smartphone.

The best Android word processor

Android’s top office suites vary greatly when it comes to their word processing capabilities. Some features, such as revision tracking, are absent across the board, but many other advanced features are available and incredibly user-friendly.

Documents to Go: Documents to Go’s word processor is clean, simple, and easy to use. The majority of the screen’s real estate is taken up by your document, with all controls accessible via your Android smartphone’s Menu button. Tapping that key brings up a host of options, including the full range of standard formatting commands and advanced word processing tools, such as word count, comment insertion, and table creation.

Documents to Go lets you open and save files locally, on your Android smartphone’s SD card. It also integrates with Google Docs and includes an optional PC-based program that syncs folders directly between your smartphone and your computer.

OfficeSuite Pro: OfficeSuite Professional offers many of the same features as Documents to Go, but the interface feels markedly less polished. Something as simple as starting a new document requires you to look in a secondary menu, which wasn’t immediately apparent to me upon opening the program.

The word processor itself, however, is relatively full-featured, with the standard set of editing and formatting options. OfficeSuite can perform word counts and tables — if you can find the buried options for those functions — and it supports both local and Google Docs-based file access.

Quickoffice: The overall interface of Quickoffice is visually pleasing and easy to navigate. The app’s word processor, unfortunately, feels limited. There are no options for table creation, and although the company’s website claims the app can handle bulleted lists and word counts, I was unable to find those options anywhere in the program. The reason, the company finally admitted: These promised features don’t actually exist in Quickoffice, though there are plans to add them. Particularly disappointing, Quickoffice doesn’t support clipboard access or any kind of cut-and-paste functionality. Overall, I found the Quickoffice word processor very frustrating to use.

On the plus side, Quickoffice offers integration with a variety of cloud-based storage providers, including Google Docs, Dropbox, Box.net, Huddle, and MobileMe.

ThinkFree: ThinkFree’s main app interface is divided into sections based on where your documents are stored: locally, on your smartphone; online, at ThinkFree’s own storage site, which offers 1GB of free space; or online, within Google Docs. To create a new document, you have to first tap on one of these sections, then press your smartphone’s Menu button to find the option. This is not very intuitive and took some exploring to figure out.

Once you’re inside the word processor, ThinkFree provides many common functions in a scrollable bar at the bottom of the screen. From that bar, you can insert images, format text, and adjust some text formatting options. All the functions are represented by visual icons, and some of them are difficult to decode. The virtual keyboard also fails to automatically appear when you tap the text area of the screen; instead, you have to find and select the keyboard icon to force it to display. Additionally, text selection is difficult to figure out, and advanced functions like word counts and tables are not provided.

Google Docs: The Google Docs Web interface, accessed by visiting docs.google.com from your smartphone’s browser, is as simple as it gets: The site presents you with a list of documents saved in your Google Docs account and a tiny button to create a new document.

Although formatting is preserved in existing documents, Google Docs doesn’t really have any options for altering text in a newly created file. If you need to do basic viewing or very basic editing, it’ll get the job done quickly and easily — but if your requirements are more involved, Google Docs likely won’t be enough for you.

The verdict: All considered, Documents to Go is the way to go when it comes to Android word processing. From its interface to its strong set of editing capabilities, it’s in a league all its own.

The best Android spreadsheet editor

Separating the good from the bad in terms of the suites’ spreadsheet functionalities doesn’t take long; two of the contenders dominate the competition, with one winning by a nose.

Documents to Go: The spreadsheet editor in Documents to Go is feature-packed and a cinch to master. The basic interface resembles Excel’s, so it isn’t difficult to figure out how to manipulate cells and perform the tasks you need. Inserting a function brings up a full-screen list of options, which can be viewed unfiltered or sorted by category (financial, statistical, and so on). Controls for cell and sheet formatting are easy to find and use. To switch between multiple worksheets, you select an option from the app’s View menu, which brings up a dialog box with a list of existing sheets.

The Documents to Go spreadsheet editor offers several advanced capabilities, such as freezing panes, sorting cells, and jumping to any specific cell within an open sheet.

OfficeSuite Pro: OfficeSuite Pro’s spreadsheet editor is fairly comparable to the one found in Documents to Go. The app is intuitive and full-featured, including all the basic and advanced options described for Documents to Go.

In fact, when looking at the spreadsheet editors alone, it’s honestly difficult to distinguish Documents to Go from OfficeSuite Pro. Both are very good, though OfficeSuite Pro’s main menu — which you have to navigate to reach the spreadsheet editor — is still a weak point.

Quickoffice: Quickoffice provides several of the same features as Documents to Go and OfficeSuite, but many of the options are placed in multilayered menus that make them difficult to find. Number formatting, for example, is on the main list of options that appears when you press your smartphone’s Menu key — but to get to font formatting, you have to press Menu, then tap More, then find the desired formatting in a scrollable list that pops up on your screen.

The app is lacking options for overall cell formatting, and functions have to be manually typed in; there are no Excel-like lists of functions that you can insert on demand.

The Quickoffice spreadsheet editor does offer a jump-to-cell feature, and you can conveniently manage worksheets via an option in the app’s main menu.

ThinkFree: As with its word processor, ThinkFree places common commands for its spreadsheet editor along a scrollable bar at the bottom of screen. The flaws of this approach are even more apparent here than in our last category; it’s painfully tricky to figure out what some of the icons represent, making basic use somewhat of a challenge.

ThinkFree’s spreadsheet editor also does not provide any user-friendly way to insert functions; you have to manually type them out in a box at the top of the screen. The app does, however, offer a jump-to-cell option and a simple process for worksheet switching.

Google Docs: Google Docs’ spreadsheet editor is much like its word processor: If you need to view something or do very basic editing, it’s a light and simple way to accomplish the task. Features and options, though, are practically nonexistent.

The verdict: Documents to Go and OfficeSuite Pro are fairly well-matched and surpass the rest of the pack in terms of spreadsheet capabilities. But thanks to Documents to Go’s superior overall interface, it edges out OfficeSuite for the top spot in this category.

The best Android presentation software

Only three of the Android office suite contenders offer support for presentations (OfficeSuite Pro does not), and the winner is a no-brainer.

Documents to Go: Documents to Go lets you create, view, and edit PowerPoint presentations. The formatting options are relatively limited; you can create slide titles, subtitles, and text, which can include bulleted lists, if you so desire. You edit in an outline mode; switching to slide-view mode lets you preview the presentation.

Quickoffice: Quickoffice lets you only view PowerPoint files stored on your Android smartphone or in your Google Docs account. You can’t do any kind of editing or create new presentations.

ThinkFree: ThinkFree provides a PowerPoint viewing utility, as well as a basic presentation creation tool. Like the rest of its suite, however, the ThinkFree presentation editor is difficult to use. Adding text, for example, requires you to long-press on a field — which most users wouldn’t think to do — to open a text-editing tool. Within that tool, you then have to search for a keyboard icon, once again, just to get your smartphone’s virtual keyboard to appear. All in all, the process is quite cumbersome.  

The verdict: No contest — Documents to Go is the winner.

The best Android PDF markup program

Although all of the office suite contenders allow for PDF viewing, none of them provides an option for highlighting or marking up the files.

For that, the app you want is Cerience’s $5 RepliGo Reader. It lets you fully annotate Adobe PDF files from your Android smartphone, including options for highlighting text, striking out text, underlining text, and adding freehand drawings. You can also attach sticky notes to your documents and have them stored as standard annotations.

RepliGo is easy to use: Once you open a PDF file, you just long-press anywhere in the document to insert markups. A dialog box gives you options to add any kind of notification you need. After saving the file, you can even send it to someone else directly from the app via Bluetooth or via such services as Gmail, Dropbox, and Evernote.

Other Android office utilities you may need

If you don’t already have a file manager on your smartphone, download Metago’s $4 Astro (there’s also a free version that displays ads). In addition to allowing you to browse through your smartphone like a hard drive — deleting, copying, and moving files as you wish — Astro opens Zip files on the fly. It can also create Zip archives and share the files via Gmail, Dropbox, or another cloud-based service with a couple of taps.

Need to view native Photoshop documents for your work? Turn to Google Docs; its Web interface recently added the ability to open Photoshop PSD files.

Putting it all together: The ideal Android office suite

For word processing, spreadsheet editing, and presentation management, Documents to Go is the best overall office suite you’ll find for Android. If you need to mark up PDF files, add RepliGo Reader into the mix. Snag Astro to handle any Zip files that come your way, and keep Google Docs bookmarked in your Web browser if Photoshop files are part of your profession.

For Android tablet users, there aren’t enough Android 3.0 Honeycomb-specific applications as of yet to do a separate and meaningful comparison, as there are in the iOS market. Documents to Go, however, scales well to the tablet form, despite its lack of large-screen optimization, so it’s my recommendation for Motorola Mobility Xoom and other Android tablet users — at the moment.

Of course, the basic office suite is just the start; plenty of other specialty programs can add value and power to a business user’s smartphone. For a look at my top selections, check out the companion feature “Specialty Android apps for business users.”

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