Shatuga

I keep reading stories of how Google Docs is making inroads against Microsoft Office in the news here and there, and I just don’t see it happening.

Google Docs is great!  I use it every day!  It, and its other online editing counterparts, have a long way to go though to be an editor replacement for a real word processor.  Here are a few GLARING problems with it:

• You can’t see pagination when editing.  How are you supposed to tell what a printed page will look like while you’re working on your document?  I don’t see how an online app is gonna do this at all.
• You can’t define paragraph styles. That’s kind of, you know, basic.
• There’s no template support. Again HELLO!
• Zoho Writer has an equation editor, GoogleDocs doesn’t – but it’s rather important to be able to edit the equations you have if you do that sort of thing.
• Insertion of media and / or other elements like spreadsheets and graphs is lacking.  GoogleDocs image support STINKS.  You have very little placement control, you can’t control borders, or spacing around images.
• Document sections?  HAH.  Address the other issues first!

So in short, so far Zohowriter and GoogleDocs both just don’t measure up to providing even basic printed document editing.  It’s great for collaborative working.  But when it comes time to print, well, it’s time to copy out of Google Docs and paste into Word. Or Pages – I actually like that Mac program.

I really like Zoho in some ways because it has a nicer toolbar, but in general I prefer GoogleDocs.

I do think that OpenOffice is a much more viable alternative for Linux users, but using Linux for normal people still has its own issues.

It seems to me that the people that write these stories haven’t really done their homework in actually thinking about why people use word processors (you know:  Usually to PRINT) or why they want to edit documents collaboratively online (you know:  usually to share information online).  The two ways of communicating are very different.

Tags: linux, windows

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 11:37 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.