Free Word Processor, Spreadsheet Tool & Presentations Application.
If you want cloud-based document editing and storage, Google Docs (free for personal use, $50 per seat per year for business users, as Google Apps) is your best choice, even though other services may offer more tools or a greater depth of features. Features aren’t everything. When I use a cloud-based app, I value speed and ease of use far more. Although Zoho offers more features, Google Docs is smoother and more reliable in overall operation. As for Microsoft’s Office Web Apps, Microsoft still hasn’t made the full suite publicly available, so we’ll have to wait for a full comparison. Cloud-based applications work best when they’re fast enough to work over a slow connection and compact enough to work well in your browser. Google Docs excels at both, and the result is an impressive balance of efficient operation and elegant design. Google Docs isn’t perfect—far from it, as you’ll see—but overall, it’s the best cloud-based application suite we’ve got.
The Google Docs Suite
Google Docs includes a word processor, a spreadsheet tool, and a presentations application, just like traditional desktop suites. It also has a drawing application and a nifty form-creator application that lets you create fill-in-the blank forms, send them out by e-mail, and store the results when other people fill in the forms in their e-mail client. At press time, Google also announced that it’ll also include Google Wave for all users, too.
Tested the free version of Google Docs. Users of the subscription-based Google Apps services get the same core productivity features as freeloading users like me, as well as the same 1GB of Google Docs storage. However, Google Apps subscribers also get enhanced Gmail security and interoperability with Exchange calendars and contacts, plus options to share Google video and get advanced features for other Google services.
Interface and Usability
Google Docs offers the cleanest, most usable interface I’ve found in any cloud-based suite, and it opens documents faster than any rival—a feature that matters when I have only a few minutes to get some work done in an airport lounge. Most of the time, I can edit in Google Docs almost as quickly as I can on a desktop machine, but if I have multiple documents open in separate tabs of my browser, editing slows to a painful crawl. Google’s suite has a minimalist look and feel, but that’s exactly what I want when I’m editing in a browser. Only Google gets the balance right between simplicity and power in cloud-based suites; Zoho easily beats Google in the feature race, but, in my experience, Zoho is less reliable and infinitely more confusing to use. Google Docs has some flaws and weaknesses—more about that later—but, on the whole, I like what it does now, and because it’s a free service, the price is right.
The collaboration features built into Google Docs are what distinguish it from desktop suites like Microsoft Office. From within Google Docs, you can send out links that let friends and colleagues edit or view your documents and collaborate with them in real-time, commenting on each other’s contributions in a chat interface. Google Docs allows up to ten people collaborate on word-processing files or presentations at the same, and allows up to fifty people collaborate on a worksheet. I doubt you’ll often want that many people piling onto your documents, but it’s good to know they can.
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