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DataViz today released a promised major upgrade to its mobile office suite for the Palm OS in Documents To Go 9. The software, the most popular such solution for the Palm platform, is often bundled by Palm, Inc. with its PDAs and Treo smartphones. It allows users to view, edit and sync Microsoft Office (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint) files and more with their mobile device.

Significantly, DataViz replaced Documents To Go 8's DocSync tool with what the company refers to has InTact Technology in the new edition. Whereas DocSync required users to sync Office files back to the desktop in order to maintain document integrity—merging changes back into the original document—InTact keeps all edited documents on a PDA or smartphone, well, intact without synchronization.

This means all file formatting - even the complex (like headers and footers, macros and animations) - is supposedly maintained when an Excel, Word or PowerPoint document is e-mailed as an attachment directly from a Treo, for example.

With InTact in tow, Documents To Go turns handhelds into capable notebook replacements, according to DataViz product manager Danny Tu. He said to PDAStreet, "Mobile travelers can really use their handhelds as a standalone device to edit documents. It frees them from having to lug a laptop just to make some changes to a spreadsheet for proposal. They can now edit fully formatting Office documents and send them to clients with out the need to sync with a computer."

And although Users can still use the desktop application to transfer files between a handheld and PC, Tu explained that DataViz is seeing an increase in people using e-mail to send attachments or transfer files through expansion cards.

"For example someone can receive a sales proposal created in Microsoft Word as an attachment. They can open that in Documents To Go in its native/original Word format, no translation or pre-processing needs to take place. The user can open that fully formatted proposal, make some changes on the handheld and send the proposal back," Tu said. When the recipient gets the attachment they can open it right up in Word with all their original formatting in place along with any changes that were made to the document. No interaction or synchronization with the desktop takes place."

According to DataViz, version 9 also adds a File Explorer for easier access to files and, finally, the ability to edit PowerPoint files natively in Slideshow To Go; something you could do with the Word and Excel files for a longtime now.

These other Documents To Go applications have been enhanced as well: In Word To Go users can now see a table of contents, as well as view and edit footnotes, endnotes, comments and text boxes; Sheet To Go brings along support XY scatter plot charting and additional cell formatting; while a component called PDF To Go has been optimized to improve performance.

Documents To Go 9 sells for $50. All owners of previous versions can upgrade for $30.