[palm3x]

OK, I'm new to the Android OS. But I've installed several apps that are supposed to have features that I can't even find. For example, I installed "Writer". This is supposed to have text formatting features (bold, italic, font size). But, after highlighting some text, I can't find anything that triggers a "Format" menu. A long tap on selected text will bring up a Cut & Paste menu. But if there's a Format menu, I haven't found it, yet.

I'm using Writer as an example, but I've tried half a dozen apps now that are listed as having certain features. Sometimes the program menu is the little checkerboard icon next to the Honeycomb task switcher at the bottom of the screen, but on many apps this menu is empty of anything useful. Some programs have an icon on the top of the screen that triggers a menu, but on others I've tapped on everything I can find and found no extra controls.

Is there some common screen gesture that I haven't discovered yet? Are developers listing future features that don't exist yet? Did Gingerbread have some context menu feature that's missing in Honeycomb? And is there some reason developers don't bother to provide a paragraph or two explaining how to use their product?

Any suggestions?

btw - I have an Acer A100 7 inch tablet, running generic Honeycomb 3.2 and downloading apps from GooglePlay. My device doesn't have a hardware Menu button, maybe that's the problem?

[mamawM]

i just downloaded writer to my a100. let me play with it for a while and i'll see if i can figure it out.

[mamawM]

well i can't help afterall, writer got stuck on downloading (i tried 2 times) and didn't even get to the installing phase. maybe we can get this thread moved to the a100 forum and get more help over there.

[palm3x]

Thanks for trying

[PvilleComp]

Well - for Writer - it uses special characters for various formatting. For example

# Header 1 looks like # Header 1

*italic* looks like *italic*

**bold** looks like **bold**

There are no special or hidden menus in this app. It just does not quite work the way I think you were hoping it would.

Hope this helps.

[palm3x]

Yes, thanks, that does it explain it and it does work. Although, unfortuanately, it does not do what I need it to do. I'm trying to use my tablet for some serious writing, and I needed something like an actual Rich Text Editor that would read standard files from my PC, allow me to edit them and then export them back to my PC.

The best solution I have found so far is to save my writing in HTML, and use an Android HTML editor. This is a little clunky, but I have a Windoze machine at the office and an Unbuntu desktop at home, so I require a file format that's really cross-platform. RTF used to be te format of choice for this, but simple HTML can be read by every PC Word Processor I use. I've tried a few Android Word Processors and frankly an HTML Editor that has a toolbar for tags is just as easy.