Not so much to ask, really

November 4, 2012 1:38 PM

So, I got myself an Android tablet, specifically for DnD nerdery. Now I've got some specific desires for pdf and spreadsheet programs - but am having a hell of a time tracking down apps that can what I want. Are these things really that hard to do in Jelly Bean?

For spreadsheet stuff, I've got some .xls sheets that I use for reference. What I'd like to do is be able to drastically change a cell with one or two taps at the most - fill it all black, put a big X in it, something. In excel for Win7 I was able to use macros to set cells up as single-click Marlett checkboxes in several columns which worked beautifully, but that particular slice of VBA is not Android friendly.

So far the closest I've found is Kingsoft Office, which has a ribbon of functions at the top including a fill command. I can tap-select a cell, tap fill, tap the color, but I'd love to just select the cell and tap one thing to fill or clear it. Is there any program that allows creation of shortcuts in the top ribbon?

For .pdfs, my need is much more simple - tabbed reading of multiple pdfs. I'd love something that runs like Foxit Reader, but apparently the Android version of Foxit is a) not free and b) kind of crap. None of the other pdf readers do tabbed reading in a simple-to-switch format. Any suggestions?

For clarity, I'm running non-rooted 4.2 Jelly Bean on an Asus Transformer Infinity TF700TT.

posted by FatherDagon to technology (6 answers total)

For spreadsheets, Google Docs.

For pdfs, my boyfriend oohs and aahs over Mantano Reader. I'm not sure about tabs, but it looks like it might have tabbed reading.
posted by nosila at 2:13 PM on November 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

GDocs doesn't really handle my specific need - the Android version of it is mostly tied to being a cloud document tool (all internal to Google Drive), and the 'full' version is browser based and a bit chunky on a tablet vs the 'mobile' version that strips most of the functionality off (and is still browser based). I'd like something offline, with either the ability to do one-touch cell changes or custom shortcuts / ribbon functions that I can set to do the exact change I want (fill cell black, insert specific character X without going through the keypad, etc etc).
posted by FatherDagon at 2:48 PM on November 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've been doing some research on Excel for my Nexus 7 over the last few days, and so far I'm liking OfficeSuite. It does have a two-tap color change - touch a cell, then touch the highlight button on the toolbar and it will highlight yellow. You can also change the single-tap highlight color to whatever color you want, like your example of black. It feels similar to Excel's background color button.

Unfortunately clearing the color isn't as quick - you have to touch the cell, touch the too-small arrow to select a color, select "No Fill", then hit OK. It does have a reasonably usable selection tool if you want to clear all your "checkboxes" at once.
posted by pocams at 3:19 PM on November 4, 2012

I use OfficeSuite on my Nexus, there is a free trial version if you want. I got super cheap on sale so if you don't need it in a hurry you can always wait for one. Like pocams says it does the cell colouring thing pretty easily and much like Excel itself does, though hindered by the smaller screen if you are using a 10" screen tablet you most likely will find it easier to clear colour.

Don't read PDFs tabbed so can't offer suggestions there but will be interested to see what others suggest.
posted by wwax at 4:59 PM on November 4, 2012

Oh hey, I have OfficeSuite Pro too. I think there was a 99-cent sale ages ago.

As others have said, that works. It works pretty nicely actually. Google Drive is close but not quite for what you want. The Drive app will work offline I believe but it's not there yet for editing much.

There's a free app called 'Simple Spreadsheet' which kind of does what you want but it's a bit clunky.
posted by GuyZero at 5:13 PM on November 4, 2012

OfficeSuite does what I need, or at least as close as I see it getting. Awesome! Keep me informed if anyone finds a tabbed pdf reader that's not all crammed up with ebook library management frontend - Adobe Reader for android is almost perfect, except for the whole lack of tabbed reading part.
posted by FatherDagon at 10:36 AM on November 5, 2012