Sony's new Media Manager 2 for the PSP had me all giddy as it allowed the transfer and viewing of documents on the PSP. Amongst supported documents are xls spreadsheets and document formats .doc and .rtf.

 

But here is the bad news, unless you actually have Microsoft Word or Excel installed on your PC then this feature will not work, and you will NOT be able to view documents (apart from txt) on your PSP.

 

This would leave OpenOffice users out of luck, as even files saved out in the appropriate format will not transfer. Even if you happen to have a Word document on your PC that you have downloaded, it will not transfer to the PSP unless you have Microsoft Word installed! I said "would" though, as there is a quick and easy workaround, which I will explain in our How to View Documents on PSP for OpenOffice users Guide! We also show you how to transfer documents even if you do not have Media Manager 2.

If you have Microsoft Word or Excel installed on your PC, then using Sony's Media Manager version 2 you can quickly transfer and doc or xls file to the PSP for viewing. If you are an open source user however, and prefer to use OpenOffice then you'll find the Media Manager will not list the documents, and therefore you cannot transfer them for viewing on the PSP.

 

Using this guide though OpenOffice will be able to transfer their documents to their PSP for viewing on the move. 

 

The solution is quote easy once you realise what Media Manager does to make your documents viewable on the PSP. All it is doing is converting the documents to a web page (html file) and allowing them to be opened in the PSP Browser, so here's what to do.

 

FILE CONVERSION 

• Open the document you wish to move to the PSP in OpenOffice.
  
• Select File>Save As
• In the Save As Type drop down box, select HTML
• Now save the html file anywhere on your PC.

 

 

Now we have the file in the correct format, we can start up Media Manager and transfer the file, so connect up your PSP with the USB cable and start up Media Manager.

• Click the documents icon at the top of the screen

• Select the folder that contains your file from the top left pane (if the folder is not listed, use the Add Shortcut icon  to browse to the folder where you saved the html file.

• Find your file in the Documents pane on the right, click on it.
• Click the Transfer to PSP icon or Right Click and select Transfer.

 

 

 

 

That's you done, the file is now on your PSP.

 

If you do not have Sony Media Manager you can transfer the file manually.

 

• Open the PSP USB connection to your PSP
  
• Drag the file from your PC to the \PSP\COMMON folder on your PSP

 

VIEW THE DOCUMENT 

 

• Open the PSP web browser. If you are not connected to the web you will get a Network Connection Error, if this happens press the circle button on your PSP twice to return to a blank white browser screen.
• Press Triangle to bring up the menu
• Select Bookmarks (the heart icon)
• Select My Bookmarks option
• Select Media Manager Documents
• Press Triangle to switch off the menu
• Now simply select from the list of transferred documents, and view your document on the move.

That looks like a lot of steps, but in practice once you have done it once it only takes a minute to transfer a file, and a few seconds to open it.

 

Incidentally the blue header graphic that heads up the file listing on the last screen can be customised to look like whatever you want - just browse for the file on your PSP and edit it in your favourite paint application.

 

Have fun viewing your documents on the move!