RepliGo

RepliGo is a portable document viewer that lets you view a variety of desktop PC documents on your Pocket PC, while maintaining the document's original look and feel. The program includes the RepliGo Viewer for your Pocket PC and file conversion utilities for your desktop PC. These utilities let you convert desktop PC documents into the proprietary RepliGo format and then transfer them to your Pocket PC. Once the document is on your Pocket PC, you use the RepliGo Viewer to display the document, zoom in and out, and move through it. The application installed on the Pocket PC is a viewer only--you cannot modify RepliGo documents on the Pocket PC.

Installing RepliGo

Installing RepliGo is simple and quick. Make sure your Pocket PC is connected to your desktop PC and run the installation program. It automatically installs both the Pocket PC viewer and the desktop PC conversion utilities.

The RepliGo conversion utilities integrate tightly with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Internet Explorer 5.5 and higher, adding a RepliGo menu option (Screen 1) or toolbar button to those applications. Once you have the desired document opened, tap on the toolbar button or select the menu option and RepliGo converts the document and sends it to a synchronized Pocket PC.

Screen 1: RepliGo installs tightly integrated conversion utilities on your desktop PC. To convert and send a desktop PC document to your Pocket PC, open the document you want on the desktop PC, click on the RepliGo menu at the top of the screen, and select "Send to Handheld" (shown here). In some cases, RepliGo adds a toolbar button to the application.

RepliGo also installs a printer driver on your desktop PC. To convert a document from an application other than Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or IE, you open the desired document in its application, select the Print option, and choose the RepliGo printer driver from the list of available printers (Screen2). The document gets converted and sent to the Pocket PC.

Screen 2: RepliGo also installs a printer driver on your desktop PC to let you transfer and view "the printout" of non-office applications on your Pocket PC.

With these two options, virtually any document you have on your desktop PC can be transferred to and viewed on your Pocket PC, including Microsoft Office documents, Adobe PDF files, Web pages, and files in hundreds of other formats.

The installation process also installs the RepliGo Desktop, which is really more of a tutorial/demo than an application. The desktop has some links to the Cerience Corporation, developer of RepliGo. The RepliGo Desktop isn't needed to convert documents--that function is integrated into the desktop PC applications, as already described.

The only problem I had with the installation process is that the RepliGo menu did not appear in Word XP until I closed and then restarted Outlook and Word on my desktop PC. I did not have to close and restart Excel or PowerPoint.

Using RepliGo on your Pocket PC

Launch the RepliGo Viewer on your Pocket PC and a list is presented of RepliGo-formatted documents that have been transferred to your device. Simply select the desired file, and RepliGo will show the entire page--useful for seeing a format, but nearly illegible (Screen 3).

Screen 3: Even my favorite Website is hard to read on full-page mode. The flow-view function makes it readable.

Go with the flow!