My desire to eliminate the extra load of my laptop pushed me to search out the perfect text editor. I've searched long and hard. And I've had the privilege of working with MANY excellent editors. The problem is, once I got started working with them, I constantly had to have more. This is the story of how I stumbled upon pedit, and why it has become my editor of choice.

When you first get your Palm, you notice that it has a little MemoPad built right in. I was further impressed to find that MemoPad is essentially an ASCII text editor, essentially a Palm version of Windows NotePad. It is especially convenient that Palm Desktop offers a drag and drop feature that allows you to drag individual Memos right into Word for more advanced editing. This is perhaps the biggest advantage to working with MemoPad, instead of DOC format.

DOC is a text format all its own. While Word files end in .doc, the Palm DOC format is NOT directly compatible with Word. Don't be fooled into thinking that Palm DOCs can be directly imported into Word and vice versa. There are, however, a number of third party utilities for your PC that allow transfer of Palm DOCs to either Word files directly OR into .txt files that can be opened in Word or any text editor. NotePad is just one example of text editor that just about everyone has on their PC.

Clearly, working with plain text in MemoPad is far more efficient and flexible. The memos can be dragged directly into Word, but could also be opened in any text editor for convenience. So why the DOC revolution then? Well, Palm has put a 4K limit on MemoPad files, so while it's more efficient to work in MemoPad, you're limited as to how large a file you can work with. DOC was started primarily for the ebook craze, but with it's unlimited file size, DOC format took off. With the DOC format, you could compose a document of any size, and although you had to use another third-party application to transfer it to Word, its lack of limitations made it the editor of choice for writers. So, I'd use MemoPad whenever I could, but I also had to carry around a DOC editor for larger works. Now, I'm no screenplay writer or novelist, but my average review is a little over 8K, so I'd need more than twice the size of a standard memo. And sometimes even my reviews get longer than that.

So what is the perfect text editor? Well, first and foremost it has to fit your needs. It has to be user-friendly, understandable, and flexible. Ability to work in BOTH DOC and Memo format is a definite plus. Speed is crucial. If you're going to have to wait for things like compression, word counts or help, I may as well wait till I get home and do it on my PC. With that, does it have extras like word count, text selection, and navigation within the work? All of these, and many more are what makes an editor great to work with.

Now, let's talk about pedit. I did an earlier review of pedit and I think that my enthusiasm showed. Since that release of pedit, the developer, Paul Nevai (who doesn't even recognize himself as a developer) has worked feverishly to enhance the already huge list of features built-in to this neat little editor. Paul is quite an amazing man. A math professor in fact, who desired a better editor for himself and decided to develop pedit for "fun". Since then, Paul works day and night, constantly recruiting beta testers to put pedit through its paces. Paul actually encourages you to find bugs in pedit. Once he's notified of a bug that will repeat itself, Paul works nonstop till the bug is fixed and issues an update. This has been an ongoing project and there were days that I was disappointed to not receive a pedit update. I got so used to getting a new version daily that once pedit was perfected and there were no more, I missed them.

So, enough already, let's talk about pedit. pedit (yes, it's supposed to be lower case) was designed as a replacement for the built-in MemoPad. Opening pedit reveals a look similar to that of MemoPad, with the exception of the bank of buttons across the bottom of the screen. New obviously opens a new Memo. The next button, myNotes, struck me as kind of odd. This button simply opens a memo labeled 000.myNotes. Each time you tap that button, that memo is opened and a time and day stamp is added to the bottom of the memo. Here, you can add thoughts or jot notes, or use as a daily journal. I use it to record bugs, crashes, fatal error messages and the like. I also find it to be a handy place to jot quick notes when someone stops me in the hall or calls unexpectedly. Rather than fishing for pen and paper, myNotes to the rescue. In and of itself, that is a neat feature, but when that memo gets filled, simply rename it 001.myNOtes and the cycle starts all over again. Tapping myNotes will open a fresh 000.myNotes for your new info will to be stored. I use it daily.

The Export button is perhaps the biggest IMPROVEMENT over the previous release. Now, pedit will export to DOC format. You can also import DOCs into pedit and work with them as text. What if the DOC is larger than 4K, you ask? Give me a minute and we'll come back to that. Let me just say that it DOES work and quite well I must add.

The DOCs button will open a list of the DOCs that you have installed on your Palm. From there, you can choose which DOC you want to import. Finally, the Recent button opens the list of memos that you are currently working in. This provides a quick way to open a memo quickly, regardless of which category you have selected.

Opening a new Memo will open your eyes altogether. The first thing that you notice is the two rows of buttons across the bottom of the screen. While these are somewhat intimidating, you'll quickly learn that in most cases, they are the first letter of the action they represent. The "U" for instance is Undo. "X" is Cut, "C"-Copy, "P"-Paste, etc.

To access the built in cheat sheet, tap the "H" for Help button.

While I couldn't possibly touch on each of the features built in to pedit, I do want to talk briefly about the ones that are truely special. The ones that take pedit far beyond the normal text editor.

Let me start with features that aren't noticeable by button or maybe not noticed at all. The first is that pedit is written to be totally compatible with both GoType and Palm Portable Keyboards. Tapping the Esc key ("'" button in upper left next to the 1) and the first letter of the command will trigger that command. For example Esc D will open the Details window, allowing you to switch the memos category, delete it individually, etc. Esc H will open the Help window and so on. All the commands can also be accessed by tapping the menu button, and their Esc keys are also listed as shortcuts. Paul designed pedit this way so that you could work for the most part without having to continually stop, grab your stylus and tap what you want. It is truely a timesaving feature and now that I'm familiar with the commands, I can simply fly with pedit.

Next, Paul designed pedit to be fully compatible with Magic Text. Magic Text is a hackmaster extension that adds some "word processor" type features like drag and drop to your Palm. Since Paul himself is a Magic Text user, pedit was designed to take full advantage of its features.

One last not so obvious improvement is the additon of fonts. The drop down menu in the bottom right corner allows you to select from a number of different fonts. I find Monaco to be my personal favorite and welcome it over the standard Palm font. It converts itself to Times New Roman when pedit memos are dragged into Word.

Another application that Paul has integrated into pedit is Stand Alone, Inc. Clipper. The idea behind Clipper is to give users an unlimited clipboard as well as some "clippings" which remain permanently in the clipboard. I have a signature that I use frequently in emails and letters saved as a clipping so that I don't have to continually retype it. Without getting off track, you'll notice that the "P" button in pedit is bolded if you have Clipper installed on your Palm.

I frequently make use of the Word Count in pedit (WC button). While there are a few DOC editors that offer a word count, few are as fast or as detailed as the one in pedit. Within pedits Word Count, you are given Characters, Words, and Lines to and from the cursor, characters, words and lines, selected and character, word and line count total. I have yet to see such a detailed word count in any other editor.

The first few times you use pedit, you'll find yourself using the "H" button frequently. Don't be ashamed. That's what it's there for. pedit was designed to be the best editor out there and with so many features packed in, and buttons for most common commands, the help key is your personal cheat sheet to help you get the most of pedit.

Paul Nevai, in addition to the Esc, and Command strokes has also added the "button shift". Button shifting is executed by tapping in the far lower right corner of the screen just above the calculator button. Button shifting opens additional commands for some of the buttons. Buttons that are compatible with button shifting will highlight black when the button shift tap is executed. For example, where the ">" button is the Segment Switcher, a button shifted ">" will activate the Quick Shifter that will allow you to bounce between the last two edited memos. I use the quick switcher the most when I'm working in a multiple segmented memo in pedit. This way, I jump between the last two segments quickly if I want to make an edit or just reference something I said in the previous segment.

Since I mentioned segmented memos, I guess I should talk about "Sky's the Limit" feature built in to pedit. Within the Edit+ Menu, you'll find a Sky's the Limit toggle. Turning on the Sky's the Limit will put an "*" next to the Help (H) button in pedit and pedit32. I mentioned before that Memos on your Palm have a 4K limit. pedit, since it uses the Palm's built in MemoPad DB is also collared by that 4K limit. Sky's the Limit was Paul's answer to the problem. Here's how it works. When the Sky's the Limit is ON (it's NEVER off on mine), pedit let's you keep typing until you hit the 3K (75%) point within your Memo. At that point, pedit automatically starts a new memo for you and allows you to just keep typing. The title of the segments are numbered so that you can tell which order they go in. pedit also puts some "code" at the head of each memo so that it can keep track of all the information. SO, with the Sky's the Limit feature turned on, the 4k limitation is all but eliminated. What's more, in pedit v3.0, you can export to and from BOTH pedit32 and DOC format. When you have a multiple segmented pedit memo, the segments are automatically put together during the export so that you are left with one flawless, continual DOC or pedit32 memo. Bear in mind that the ONLY difference between pedit and pedit32 is that pedit memos can only be 4k, and pedit32 memos can be 32K. pedit32 uses its own database, NOT the Palms MemDB. In the backup folder within your Palm Desktop, you'll find a Memo32DB.pdb file. This is the database of all pedit32 memos and it too can be opened in any text editor. There is also a Sky's the Limit feature within pedit32, though I haven't written anything that long on my Palm YET.

Finally, the MagiPad. Before I was told of pedit, I was a big fan of Memo+. The biggest feature there is the incorporation of templates. Having a way to store commonly used information as a template that doesn't need to be re-entered is a VERY useful feature to me. While pedit/pedit32 don't have templates per say, Paul did have the foresight to include Magi Pad. Tapping the "M" button accesses the MagiPad. Information can be stored here and copied/pasted into ANY pedit memo. This allows me to keep large amounts of information at my fingertips, no matter where I am within pedit.

You don't have to be using a keyboard to take advantage of the quick commands. The "Command" Stroke in the graffiti area followed by the letter of the button is also an effective alternative. As an experienced peditor, I can just as easily navigate through pedit with or without my keyboard. It just takes some time to memorize the commands. And don't forget that all of the options are listed in the Menu. If you're ever stumped, either tap the "H" button, or tap the Menu button and you'll find what you're looking for.