Blue Nomad Software: WordSmith Reviews

Blue Nomad's WordSmith wins prestigious 2002 PC World World Class Award for the category of Best PDA Software. Please see the July issue of PC World Magazine or www.pcworld.com for more information.
WordSmith wins the Best Document Editor/Viewer of 2000 Award! "Overall WordSmith is a superb program. It's an absolute must-have if you use Word and own a Palm Portable or Stowaway keyboard. Even if you're not a keyboard user, it's a top-quality Doc/e-book reader and editor, with an overall feature set and ease of use quotient that's unmatched by the competition. -Denny Atkin, www.hhcmag.com
WordSmith wins VisorCentral's Application of the Year Award for 2001! "Take everything useful from Microsoft Word and cram it into an intuitive interface on the Visor, and you have WordSmith. In addition to being a DOC editor and a Memopad replacement, WordSmith lets users edit Microsoft Word documents seamlessly on any Palm OS device. WordSmith is 'a better Word than Word,' and even outpaces the Pocket PC's Pocket Word in some instances."
" WordSmith possesses a large variety of preference settings and MS Word-like formatting possibilities. Display settings include scrolling method, text sizes, use of FineType fonts, display text weight, tag appearances, and highlighting color. You can even invert the screen. Its own Find/Replace functions in place of the Palm OS Find, furnishing a more powerful alternative-again, a core word processing capability. WordSmith also has special support for a variety of keyboard hardware, something those who write for a living will appreciate." - Tanker Bob www.pdabuyersguide.com
"I firmly believe the combination of powerful word processing tools, seamless synchronization with MS Word and extensive keyboard support make WordSmith a must-have application for any writer wishing to use a Palm as a serious word processing tool. Alexander Hinds of Blue Nomad and Scott Maxwell of Quick Sense should be highly praised for pushing the boundaries of the Palm platform further than ever before with this excellent tool." - Mike Rohde, Palm Tipsheet Editor www.palmtipsheet.com
"WordSmith is a stunning software package that allows you to access your standard memos from the Palm Memo Pad application, Palm DOC files, and WordSmith files... Why Palm never had something like this years ago never ceases to amaze me. It is about time a product arrived for the Palm platform that could compete with Pocket Word on the Pocket PC. The simplicity of synchronizing to your desktop makes this a "must have" product. Wordsmith is the best word processor for the Palm that I have seen yet. Thus, the Wordsmith Beta gets 5 Geekheads for Geekness." - Mark Thomas, www.geek.com

"The word "Finally" is what first came to my head when I read the details on this program. I couldn't believe there was actually a word processing program out for the PalmOS that supported keyboard navigation. As I read more on this fascinating program, I wondered to myself why it took this long.... Who cares, it's here now!!!" - Frank, PDASquare.com

WordSmith tested independently by a major German Palm user group against all mobile computer related publications on the English and German market and awarded testsieger! ("winner of the test") - Boris Michael von Luhovoy, Palmtop-Pro Magazine

"Blue Nomad has done the impossible: they've created the best word processor for handheld computing, better than Microsoft's Pocket Word." - Jeff Kirvin, Writing On Your Palm

WordSmith 2.1, was reviewed favorably in issue 10 of PalmUser magazine:" Excellent value for the money... Whether creating documents from scratch or making small amendments to a desktop master, WordSmith is quite simply the best Palm word processor around." (PalmUser magazine issue 10).

"The best program of the bunch is WordSmith by Blue Nomad...WordSmith also has a great conduit that is integrated well with Microsoft Word. It places a little icon in the toolbar to add in documents quickly to your Palm. The conduit also allows you to synchronize documents between your Desktop and your Palm just like how you can sync your memos, email, date book, etc. An improved memo pad is built in; you can format your memos! Wordsmith allows formatting too, including bold, italics, underline, superscript, subscript, indenting, font, font size, and a lot more! This is a true word processing program; I never thought a Palm could do what WordSmith has done. If you are looking for a great word processor that integrates tightly with Microsoft Word for your PC or Mac, take a look at WordSmith from Blue Nomad!" -Zack Mahdavi, < a href="http://www.zmweb.com/Design/" target="Resource Window">ZMWeb Design

"The combination of a handheld, good folding keyboard, and a reasonable word processor is extremely powerful." - Dan Bricklin, < a href="http://www.bricklin.com/log/wordsmithreview.htm" target="Resource Window">Trellix

Blue Nomad's WordSmith, an extraordinary rich and powerful word processing system for a handheld device. Combined with the Stowaway, it is unbeatable... It's virtues are multifarious - Read Bruce Marcus' full review.

"For the time being, with the limitation of the current limitations of PDAs being what they are, I can't imagine getting much closer than this to true word processing functionality on a PDA. I have tried each entry in the current crop of word processor contenders and only WordSmith performed all of the functions that I wanted in a program and did it with the stability and reliability that I expect and need. Hats off to Blue Nomad for truly raising the bar in this market space." - Scott R. Almas, Capital District Palm User Group

"WordSmith... must be considered the current state of the art in Palm OS word processing... I was impressed by the number of innovations in WordSmith... WordSmith's creators have also impressed in the month since its release with a growing reputation for responsive customer support. Nothing's perfect, especially in the fast moving world of third party software, but WordSmith gets closer than most in this, its very first release." - Steve Litchfield, (PalmUser magazine issue 7)

"WordSmith is amazingly user-friendly. This is in stark contrast with such incomprehensible editors as Pedit or RichReader. You can choose standard Palm menus or 8 large, easily identifiable buttons at the bottom of the screen to control all functions, and even get full-screen mode for text display. With WordSmith, you get full featured word processing -- I am so registering this sucker." - Paul Gowder, Paultopia.net

"Once again Blue Nomad Software, previously known as BackupBuddy Software, has demonstrated their uncanny ability to bring forth another great software application that will change the way people use their Palm OS PDAs. Using WordSmith on my Visor Prism with my Stowaway keyboard has given me one more reason to leave my laptop at home." - Carl Quick www.thequickster.com

"Congratulations! You have produced the Word Perfect of handheld computing. I consider the handheld to be in the same stage of development as DOS computers were about 15 - 20 years ago. At that time, Word Perfect was the program that made the computer truly useful and gave the typewriter the heave ho. Your software has given me no problem to date. I have a Stowaway keyboard. With your software, I have 90 percent of what I need to do with a heavy notebook computer with short battery life. Thank you for what you have done." Most sincerely yours, Ed Wallick

"I've been using the demo version of WordSmith for a couple of days and all I can say is Wow! What a treat to be able to use a real word processor on my Handspring Visor! I've been able to write a two page technical piece in WordSmith, download the doc to my Mac, and drop it into PageMaker (because it requires some graphic work). I did the WordSmith part in the car (my wife was driving)! The folding keyboard I have works perfectly with your program. Thanks. I can't wait to order the full version. I look forward to new versions of WordSmith with the improvements you list on your web site." - Bruce Smith

"I just wanted to take a minute to let you know how much I appreciate your software and how it has truly enabled me to become even more productive. I am a Professional Photographer and Multi-Media Developer. I have been doing this for over 20 years and have been involved with the development and creation of many new technologies. I have also used Palm based devices since they came out with the Pilot years ago. Recently I purchased the Sony N710C Clie. Because of its beautiful display I am now able to bring along images that I can show clients without carrying my laptop, I thought things could not get better!

"Normally I don't carry both the handheld and the laptop but as you will see this has changed for me. Last month I saw your Wordsmith product mentioned on a Clie newsgroup and checked it out. I was quite intrigued with your software but thought that I just couldn't use it as I could not see myself using graffiti to input an entire document. I had been aware of the Keyboards such as the Go-Type for quite some time but didn't want to carry anything that large as it seemed to be in stark contrast to the very reason I purchased the palm which is portability. Anyway, I purchased the Stowaway after it was released a few weeks ago and purchased your Wordsmith at the same time. The day after I received both I had a very important meeting with one of my top clients for whom I am developing an Interactive CD, a Video for training and a very large Website. At the meeting I had my Laptop open and was displaying the latest revisions to the client and discussing any changes with him. During this meeting I was taking hand written notes on a legal pad as I couldn't type into the laptop while displaying the software changes. About fifteen minutes into the meeting I started to develop hand cramps which have always been a great problem for me, when all of a sudden I remembered I had the Clie with the new keyboard in my bag. Well I pulled out both set them up and started working in Wordsmith right away. I had familiarized myself with everything the night before. I couldn't believe I had forgotten about them so soon:-) Anyway, the outcome of all this is that I took over 20 pages of notes and newly written script content during the next four hours and it was extremely readable :-) and the formatting was easily accomplished. It allowed me to continue to display the software on my laptop where both my Client and I could see and play with it while taking comprehensive detailed notes on changes and additions to it at the same time. Afterwards when I got back to the office I synched with Word and I was able to printout the notes and email a copy to the client as well"

"I am now a true convert and carry the Clie with Wordsmith 2.0 and the Stowaway everywhere I go, I never go anywhere without them. I use it on Photo shoots as it fits into my camera bag extremely easily and allows me to take notes about my subjects in the field when I am thinking about it. Thank you for a really great product I have not been this pleased with anything in a long time."
- Rick Unland Spin City Imaging

"As a writer with an ever increasing workload, and a girlfriend who wants to be away from home a bit, I needed a program that would allow me to seamlessly work on my writing on my handspring visor as well as my home and work computers. I tried a few of those other word processors, but found WordSmith to be the best. Now that I can take my writing on the go, it’s totally revolutionized the way I write. It’s also made keeping deadlines MUCH easier. I just wanted to thank you for such a wonderful program, and say that I hope you keep up the great work. I wish you countless success, because if WordSmith is any indication, you certainly deserve it. Thanks so much." -Brian Rubin