alternatives to office mobile that will work from phone not the cloud?

[flyinghorse]

One of the main reasons I chose the 520 was because it supposedly had the ability to work with
word and excel, otherwise I would've gotten a blackberry. Imagine my surprise AFTER getting it, that
it only works with skydrive. I need a program that works with documents and spreadsheets from the
PHONE, not the cloud. I need the ability to work with documents even if I'm on an airplane, or somewhere
where AT&T doesn't have service (which is a quarter of the U.S.) I don't need a complex do everything program,
just something that reads and does basic edits of 97 word and excel files, or older files, files like txt and wks,
and preferably pdf, stored on my micro sd card. Although can use a separate program if I have to for PDF.
Does anyone have any suggestions, preferably free or not expensive, or should I just take the phone back and
get a blackberry?

 

[Zerveone]

You can download documents directly on Your phone, to work with them offline.
Just go into Office hub, skydrive directory, find Your document and tap+hold it longer untill a menu shows, where You can "download now" or something like that. That option places it directly into Your phone so You can work with it being offline.

 

[flyinghorse]

I guess I haven't download skydrive yet, or if it's already on there I haven't found it. I just want to make sure I got this right, I have to
upload all my documents to skydrive first, and download them BACK to the phone, JUST to be able to work with them offline. Is that correct?

 

[Zerveone]

To get any document onto your phone You need it first on Skydrive, so yes, You need to upload them on skydrive first (from your PC).
After that You just open Office hub/app on your phone, tap Skydrive, browse for stuff and download it to your phone as I mentioned above.

You don't need to download skydrive app on Your phone. Your Office app should be connected to Your skydrive account so all You have to do is put your documents on skydrive (best put inside "documents" folder) from Your PC.
If they're already there, just go to Office app, browse skydrive folder and your documents should be listed there (refresh it if you don't see them).

If You got any further questions or my instructions aren't clear - ask

 

[flyinghorse]

Okay, I browsed with the office app on phone, it didn't find anything but at the moment I haven't uploaded it yet, am trying to. You're saying I need to upload the documents to skydrive from my PC first, and not the phone? They're currently on the phones sd card but not in a folder. Will putting it in a folder called "documents" help find it? And how do you refresh, unless you mean go out and come back, which I did.

 

[tgp]

just something that reads and does basic edits of 97 word and excel files, or older files, files like txt and wks,

This is going to be a problem. WP's built in Office can't edit anything older than 2007 Office files if I'm not mistaken.

 

[AndyCalling]

Actually no, you don't have to use Skydrive. Any document emailed to you will be fine. Also, you can simply copy and paste your files to your phone's document folder via your PC. I'm not sure how else you were planning on sourcing your docs, that covers it for me. SD card is not a good place for important docs as it is unencrypted, so a lost phone would be major crisis.

 

[Robby Herbert]

Okay, I don't know if this will work on Lumia 520 or not but even on my Lumia 710 (a Windows 7 phone), when I go to Office and I click New, I have the option to save the document or excel worksheet to my phone and not to Skydrive. If you already have documents or excel worksheets in Office on your phone, but saved to Skydrive, you can do one of two things to save it on your phone: Open the document or excel worksheet and open the options (...), click Save as ..., and change where you want to save it. Or go to the built-in Skydrive option in Office and go through your folders until you find the document or excel worksheet that you want on your phone, long press for extra options and select Download Now to save it to your phone. Adobe Reader also has an app for reading (not editing) PDFs. If you do not want to use Skydrive, you will most likely have to email all your documents to yourself, open them up on your 520, and be sure to save the document to your phone. *Note: As said in a reply in this section, an SD card is not the safest place to keep your documents. I recommend saving apps, games, music, photos, or videos on your SD card. Hope this helps.