User`s guide
Moving 1
00/200
LX
NoteTaker and
Database files
To
Pocket Word and
Pocket Excel
on
the HP 320LX
By
Hal Goldstein
HP
1
OOLX
and
200LX
NoteTaker
and
Database files
can
be
accessed
on
the
HP
320LX
in
either
Pocket
Word
and
Pocket
Excel.
In
fact,
like
Lotus
1-2-3,
Pocket
Excel
can
be
used
as
a
tabular
database.
The
trick
in
either
case
is
to
make
use
of
F5
(Smart
Clip)
in
NoteTaker
and
DataBase.
Smart
Clip
is
a
power-
ful,
easy-to-use
formatter
that
lets
you
output
data
in
any
format
you
want.
If
you
decide
to
export
to
Excel,
then
you
need
to
create
a
Smart
Clip
that
pro-
duces
a
Comma
Delimited
or
Tabular
file
which
Excel
(on
a
Windows
95
machine)
can
read.
So
for
example,
in
NoteTaker
you
might
create
a
smart
clip
that
reads:
"Category",
"Title"
,"Note"
using
the
F2
(Field)
key
within
Smart
Clip.
(You
may,
however,
have
difficulty
importing
into
Excel
long
comments
in
the
Notes
field
the
way
you
want
them.)
Once
you
have
defined
the
Smart
Clip,
from
the
main
Notetaker
or
Database
menu
use
the
(Menu)
File
frint
command
to
cre-
ate
the
file
to
be
imported
into
Excel.
Similarily,
Pocket
Word
will
read
the
output
from
any
Database
or
NoteTaker
file
(using
Smart
Clip
and
,
(Menu)
File
frint).
If
you
wish
to
create
a
320LX
Pocket
Word
document
from
your
100/200LX
NoteTaker
or
Database
file,
you
will
have
to
decide
how
you
want
your
data
displayed,
and
in
what
order.
The
end
result
will
be
a
long
Pocket
Word
file
with
one
Databasel
NoteTaker
record
following
another.
The
good
news
about
the
Pocket
Excel
and
Pocket
Word
solutions
is
that
both
allow
access
of
HP
100/200LX
data.
The
bad
news
is
that
the
access
is
clumsy,
and
creating
new
data
for
the
databases
is
even
clumsier.
Difficulty
recognizing
MEMO
and Lotus
files
Before
experimenting
with
other
file conversions, I
made
a
copy
of
all
my
100/200LX
files
in
a
new
directory for 320LX files
on
my
Pc.
I
did
not
want
to
risk
losing
the
desktop
backup
copy
of
my
100/200LX
files.
Then
I
tried
to
move
groups
of
the
copied
100/200LX
application
files
to
H/pe
Explorer
and
synchronize
them,
to
see
what
file
types
the
300/320LX
software
would
recog-
nize
without
further effort.
This
was
another
disappoint-
ment.
Neither
Pocket
Word
nor
Pocket
Excel
recognize
the
100/200LX
Lotus
1-2-3 files
with
the
.WKI
extension.
H/pe
Explorer
thinks
.WKI is a
Pocket
Word
file type.
However, Pocket
Word
recog-
nizes
.TXT
files
without
difficulty,
and
in
order
to get the
program
to
recognize
100/200LX MEMO files
with
the
.DOe
extension,
just
change
the
display
of
files
from
"Pocket
Word
Documents" to "All
Documents."
To
solve
these
conversion
problems
I
opened
my
Office 97
desktop
copies of
Word
and
Excel
and
imported
each 100/200LX file
with
a
DOe
or .
TXT
extension into
Word,
then
used
the
menu
com-
mand
"Save As
...
" to save the files
in
standard
Word
format.
Then
I
imported
the 100/
200LX
Lotus 1-2-
3 files
with
.WKI
extensions
into
Excel
and
saved
them as Excel files.
I
then
deleted
the
old
100/200LX
versions of the files from
my
320LX
file directories.
When
I
moved
the
newly
saved files onto the
H/pe
Explorer
desktop (using the copy
and
paste
commands), each file automatically
converted
effortlessly
into
Pocket
Word
or Pocket Excel format. After
conversion, I
was
able to
open
and
review
my
files
on
the
320LX,
using
Pocket
Word
and
Pocket
Excel.
Many
of
the
text
files
will
require reformatting,
but
I will
do
this as I use
them
over the coming
months.
Note
that
conversion
to
or
from
Pocket
Word
and
Pocket
Excel format occur automatically as
you
move
or
copy
files
from
the
desktop
to
the
palmtop
and
back.
This file conversion process is sepa-
ra
te
from
the
sychroniza
tion
process
used
to
compare
desktop
and
palmtop
copies
of
your
appointments, contact
and
task ("to
do")
databases.
HP
technical support
Several
setup
and
configuration
problems
caused
me
to
call
HP
Technical
Support
during
the first
days after I
bought
my
320LX.
My
longest wait
was
about
30 minutes,
when
I
started
out
as caller
15
in
the queue. They are trying to be as
helpful
as
possible,
but
the
300
series
units
are
so
new
that
they
don't
have
solutions
for
every
problem.
The
technical
support
representatives I spoke to
had
only
recently
received
their
own
300
series units, so they
couldn't
possi-
bly
have
had
too
much
experience
with
potential
problems. I
plan
to
report
the
resolution
of all
prob-
lems to
HP
so they can
add
to their
know
ledge
base
for
300-series
problem-solving.
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THEHPPALMTOPPAPER
SEPTEMBER/ OCTOBER 1997
23