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If you’re using the Palm desktop PIM (Personal Information Manager) that would have been the default option when you installed the software. To use Outlook, you have to deliberately select it on loading software.

Outlook is, as Keely says, a much more powerful PIM, but whether you want to use it is entirely up to you. If you’re not on a network, and therefore not using Outlook for scheduling appointments, using global adress books,etc, there’s no pressing need to switch to Outlook.

If you do, as mentioned in my earlier post, you have to uninstall the Palm software, restart the computer, and then reinstall it, watching for the option to use Outlook rather than the Palm Desktop. The manual that came with the Palm should explain this.

If you don’t do anything drastic to your Palm PDA (i.e. a hard restart, which clears all data), when you next synch the PDA with Outlook, the synch conduit will take all the data/info in the PDA and put it in the right folder in Outlook – I’ve just done that with my PC and Palm.

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding your question, but can’t you simply go to the Adobe acrobat site and download Acrobat Reader? It will install itself properly, and automatically fire up when you double click on a PDF file.

Sorry if I’ve otherwise missed your point.

I’m using a venerable Palm IIIc, so there may have been changes with the newer ones, but I’m pretty sure you can synchronize your PDA with only one of either Outlook or the Palm Desktop. That is generally a choice you make when you first install the Palm desktop software on your computer. The CD that came with your PDA probably also included PocketMirror by Chapura – may have changed a bit over the last few years to another title – but that is the synchronization conduit you need to synch with Outlook. Once you’ve done that, you can’t use the Palm Desktop without a complete uninstall and reinstallation of the software.

As far as the address book synch, you may want to check setup and custom on the desktop menu to ensure address book is set to have the address book synchronized.

As far as using the Outlook Contacts, your choices are, if continuing to use the Palm Desktop, to, unfortunately, manually copy them into the desktop address book, or into the PDA itself for later synchronization.

If you want instead to synch with Outlook, you’ll need to uninstall and reinstall the software, and designate Outlook as your choice. Be aware, however, that if you’re on a network with a global Outlook Address List populated by the network administrators, that the Palm won’t show the actual e-mail addresses, but the alias used in the Global list – at least that’s the case with my Palm IIIc (e.g John Smith, vice john.smith@acmecompany.com).

I have XP Home and office 97, with 256 MB RAM – works just fine for me, doing essentially the same functions as what you’ve described – plus working with digital photos.

I had a similar problem some time ago, but it was when using Outlook as the e-mail application. Perhaps there is a related reason.

In Outlook, under Tools/Options/Mail Format there is a checkable box to use MS Word as the e-mail editor. If that is checked, it seemed to cause all sorts of problems with incoming attached files. When unchecked, everything’s fine.

Don’t know if that helps, but I offer it anyway.

I use the scroll button on my mouse to move the cursor through the text – seems to avoid the high speed trip you speak of.

I’ve used a Palm for some time and now have a Blackberry.

A Palm of any model will do just fine – it’s not the PDA OS that drives the issue, it is the synchronization software you have. There are several third party software applications that will go on both your desktop and the PDA itself to allow you to read and in some cases modify Word and Excel files. Try Documents to Go, and Wordsmith for example, for Word usage. I’m not conversant with spreadsheet applications, but I do know there are several available.

Wordsmith works great on word documents, but a PDA keyboard becomes a necessity for any meaningful data entry. There are a couple of Palm compatible keyboards – I had a folding one which in folded state was about the size of a Pal, folded out to a full-sized keyboard, and worked well with both Palm and Wordsmith conventions.

There are lots of Palm sites whre you can purchase and download such applications – most are shareware, giving you the opportunity to try them out first. There are links off the Palm site to most of them.

Yup – it’s not activated. Strangely enough, the log shows that ZA is blocking some entry attemtps, it just doesn’t lock after 15 minutes of inactivity as set in the config.

Thanks – yes I have that version of ZA. I’ve just activated and registered my Windows XP, so I’ll see if that makes a change.

All I can tell you, as a manager type, is that we have had a number of fairly complicated compilations of documents that, using Binder, we could assigne a standard page and section numbering protocol which would then automatically make the necessary changes when one page of one document would be changed.

This may be a dumb idea from someone not terribly familiar with the problem, but would not MS Binder do all this for you?

Thanks for that reference – just answered a lot of questions I couldn’t resolve anywhere else.

**edited by KT to include hyperlink**
I’ve used Smart Draw, but for relatively simple charts, it’s like using an anvil to crack a peanut – far too powerful. Flow Chart Maker, which used to be at http://www.cosmi.com, suits me just fine, and can export its files into Word, powerpoint, etc.

Wordsmith.org seems to be a relatively innocuous website and related mailing list which among other things sends out a new “word-a-day” for those who are caught up with earning new and exciting ways to impress their friends in conversations. It’s at http://www.wordsmith.org

Do a search in the Software Finds for Marconnit, a pretty nifty piece of freeware. It was designed by a professor to mark directly on his projected presentations to classes to highlight text or pieces of a flow chart, for example.