what am I doing wrong?

[ritaxis]

I got this Nexus tablet to travel with but I can't work on my files with it. Mostly it just won't open things. When it does open things, everything is apparently read-only. I have tried four different apps: "document viewer," naturally only for viewing: kingsoft office, which a friend of mine uses to edit just fine: android office: and android open

Comments

[heleninwales]

Is something altering the file permissions? I know that copying files off a CD ends up with them all set to "Read Only", so it sound as though something similar is happening in the process of transferring the files to the Nexus.

I can open and edit MS Office files on my iPod Touch, so the Nexus should also do it.

[randwolf]

There are other apps that edit MS format documents--why don't you try some of them?

Here's a (rather old) list: https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9221211/5_office_suites_for_Android_phones

If the files don't have complex formatting, you can also upload them to Google Drive and the native Android Drive app will edit them.

[green_knight]

It does sound like a file permission problem.

- Can you create new documents and do they work ok?

- are the permissions on the serving side - dropbox/google drive set correctly, or might you need to add your tablet as an 'editing allowed' device to it?

- what happens if you email yourself the file as an attachment?

Failing the above:

- are there any parental controls/other limitations that might be inadvertendly set?

Hope you can sort it out soon!

[autopope]

Strong rec: look for Softmaker Office (www.softmaker.de). Their apps are also available via the Google Play store -- TextMaker, PlanMaker, and Presentations. TextMaker (the WP) is the best WP I've found on Android in terms of getting stuff done (rather than looking pretty and barely reformatting text); it can open and edit OpenDocument, RTF, Word .doc and .docx, and so on. It can interoperate with Dropbox directly, loading and saving from Dropbox storage over the air (once you've logged into Dropbox from within one of their apps).

You may also want a decent keyboard -- either a bluetooth keyboard and mouse (plus a stand) for use at a desk, or something like Swype or SwiftKey for text input on the move. I'd strongly recommend paying for Swype; it comes with Dragon Dictate speech recognition and Swype gestural input built in, and is sold by Nuance (i.e. the folks behind Dragon and Apple's Siri).

[ellarien]

I recently got a Nexus 7 and love it, and I'm sorry you're having trouble.

I haven't yet found a free android app that will edit rtf at all, but I have no problem editing .doc files with the free version of Kingsoft, so that does sound like a permission problem. (My only other thought is that I don't know what would happen if the .doc files were really .rtf "under the hood", which I seem to remember could happen with some early versions of OpenOffice.

What happens if you use Kingsoft to open a new file?

Seconding the recommendation for Swype -- but be warned that "smart" keyboards take some getting used to!