What are these tools and why use them?
The online document writers and sheetsheets reviewed here – Google, ThinkFree and Zoho – are internet services that function as online word processors and spreadsheets. All three feature intuitive user interfaces and commands for formatting text and tables that will be familiar to anyone who has used Word.

The real advantage in using these tools for your work is how well they facilitate working in situations where you need to collaborate on documents – such as a funding bid or strategy document. For example, the tools can notify you when changes are made to a document, maintain a document revision history, and even allow multiple authors to work on the same document simultaneously, and allow authors to annotate the document with comments – all in a single, completely Web-based package.

How do I get started?
As always, the best way to get started is to try the tools out yourself. Since the tools are all free, you need only create an account, log in, and start writing, editing, and sharing. Once you’ve completed these simple steps, how you choose to use the services will vary based on your needs.

I also recommend that when you’re trying out the web office tools, try and think about their potential applications for your own work – particularly if you’re working in partnership with colleagues on a funding bid, strategy document, meeting minutes, etc. Once you are comfortable with how they work, you will likely start to see potential everywhere or how they could be applied for teaching and learning situations.

Why do this?
There some very good reasons to start exploring web office tools:

• Total Cost of Ownership – is very low as it removes the cost of buying Microsoft Office licences. All you need is a computer with a broadband Internet connection and a web browser.
• Extremely easy document sharing and collaboration – just think about how often you’ve worked on a shared document and struggled to figure out the changes made by another author…
• Familiar, intuitive word processor and spreadsheet interfaces
• Availability from any computer with an Internet connection (i.e., no need for local copies, CDs, flash drives, etc.)
• Versioning by saving a history of changes (who and when) that can be
• viewed and compared
• Ability to save local copies if desired
• Ability to import and export documents in various file formats (doc, csv, rtf, txt, html, opd, sxw, pdf)

Disadvantages
Again, looking generally at the range of services overall, you should consider their specific situation or need in light of several features including:

• potential privacy or data security issues due to the fact that documents are
• data stored on the host’s server
• users must be connected to the Internet in order to edit documents
• typical issues with a service that is hosted outside of your organisation – varying levels of technical support, separate accounts
• need to manually invite collaborators to share your documents and spreadhsheets
• file size limitations
• data storage limitations

Comparing web office products
Three online office tools are reviewed here. You can also click the view button for a comparison of ThinkFree, Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Zoho Writer and Sheet. Web Office Comparison Chart

ThinkFree Online Edition:
During testing, ThinkFree Online Edition emerged as my choice of word processor and spreadsheet because of its focus on delivering a tightly integrated set of word processing and spreadhseet tools. This results in ThinkFree Online edition delivering faster editing speeds, handling large and complex documents and being able to work offline – important if you need to work in areas without an Internet connection. It also has a familar user interface that borrows heavily from Word and Excel.

ThinkFree also offers full document tagging, sharing and collaboration through its Doc Exchange (see left), an online area where documents can either be shared publically (like templates) or privately with only other people you’ve invited to share your document with.

I also prefer ThinkFree’s Webtop, which makes it easier to browse uploaded files and perform actions like sharing and tagging.

For power users (see image) needing access to more advanced editing features and quick editing speeds, ThinkFree offers a Power Edit mode which opens up a Java applet on your computer.

Disadvantages: On the downsideThinkFree appears to be the only one not to currently support Open Office file formats (opd, ops, sxw).

Future developments: Another slight downside is ThinkFree’s lack of integration with email, calendar and address book services to form a complete office suite under one banner. However, ThinkFree does seem to be looking at this and we could well see these missing services emerge in ThinkFree during the near future.

Zoho Writer and Zoho Sheet:
Zoho Writer and Sheet is a well supported free online word processor and spreadhseet service . It has a clean, simple interface familiar to users of Word and Excel. Zoho also offers the ability to share and publish documents, and can import and export to a wide range of file formats, including Open Office. Zoho also offers offline working via it plug-in for Microsoft Office.

As with ThinkFree, you can also post directly from Zoho to your blog of choice. Zoho Writer and Zoho Sheet also gives you extra storage capacity by integrating with online storage company Box.net , which offers 1GB of free storage.

Disadvantages: On the downside, many users have noted that whilst it accurately displays simple Word documents imported into Zoho Writer, it tends to slow down and struggle with more complex documents, such as the 47 page ICT Strategy I’m currently writing. In fairness to Zoho, the company acknowledges this and is working on improving its speed.

Future developments: Interestingly, Zoho also has a rapidly expanding suite of free and paid for online office tools such as a web notebook, wiki, project manager, customer relationship management (CRM), and database tools. As a sign of things to come, Zoho will also be partnering with EchoSign – which will allow users to send digitally signed invoices and receipts, a small step towards integrating online commerce with your office documents.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets:
If it’s integration with email, calendar and contacts you’re after – Google Docs & Spreadsheets is the one. Whilst this service has rather basic document formatting options, it makes collaboration and sharing easy through integration with GMail. This probably the choice to make if you want to collborate on rough drafts or outlines without worrying about a polished final look. Google Docs & Spreadheets also supports a wide range of file formats, including Word and Open Office.

Disadvantages: However, Google Docs and Spreadheets has the most basic word processing and spreadhseets functions and the lowest file size capacity of the ‘free’ services reviewed – and is probably not the choice to make if you want to collaborate on large, complex business documents.

What’s next for the web office?
One thing that’s clearly missing from all three services is that staple of office life – the mail-merge of text documents and address book contacts to create letters and labels. This may well change in th near future as all three services look to offer an integrated package of calendar, email, and contacts along with document and spreadsheet editors.

My orginal hypothesis was:
Online tools have the potential to enable organisations to more easily exploit ICT and better achieve their organisational goals. However, most of the UK voluntary sector has not yet grasped how they can use online tools to connect with their stakeholders. Online tools can be applied to everyday tasks like email, calendar, documents and spreadsheets and replace desktop applications.

You can read about the tools used in the experiement here.

Well, the results are now in and the edited highlights from experiment are:

• Online tools have the potential to free organisations from the traditional complexity of ICT decisions.
• Online tools can also help very small organisations (such as those working from Internet cafes) with basic business tasks such as email, calendar, contacts and documents.
• Organisations that grasp the opportunities of new online tools will prosper as they’ll be the ones getting their story heard by funders

However,

• Organisations can be reluctant to use ICT differently; and more examples are needed to show what can be done with online tools.
• It’s difficult to pick the right web tool for the right business task, especially when some but not all of these online tools can integrate with each other and/or synchronise with software such as Outlook.
• Sustainability – chose carefully as the sustainability of online tools is difficult to gauge, given that some of these tools could disappear from the Internet at any time. Make sure you have a disaster recovery plan.
• Security – issues around entrusting your organisations’s data to a third party like Google or Microsoft still remain to be resolved
  

Online tools have the potential to enable organisations to more easily exploit ICT and better achieve their organisational goals. However, most of the UK voluntary sector has not yet grasped how they can use online tools to connect with their stakeholders. Online tools can be applied to everyday tasks like email, calendar, documents and spreadsheets and replace desktop applications.

Part Two will concentrate on reviewing the tools I used in terms of the end user experience and suitability for voluntary sector use.

Getting started was easy enough. To synch contacts, Plaxo supplies a handy widget that installs into the Outlook toolbar. The widget is also smart enough to sniff out duplicate contacts between Outlook and your online adresss book in Plaxo. For those wanting to go the Plaxo-centric route to the web office, Plaxo’s widget will also synch your Outlook calendar, notes and tasks.

Moving from the Outlook calendar was also straight-forward and all it took was to export my Outlook calendar and upload it to my Google Calendar. I wrote here about how to import and share calendars in Google.

For two way synchronisation between Outlook and Google calendar there’s the handy SyncMyCal tool, which installs into the Outlook toolbar. The free edition offers limited synchronisation (of events 3 days before and after the current day), so we’ll see if it’s worth upgrading for the full benefits.

However, the real big-daddy is switching from Outlook email to Gmail. If there’s one thing Google doesn’t do very well it’s contacts, and that’s surprising given the way that Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Talk and Google Mobile all seamlessly integrate with each. It is possible to import contacts as a CSV file into Gmail, but Google’s contact management is rather basic. I have set up email forwarding from Outlook to Gmail, so people will now start getting emails from my alias, ictchamp@googlemail.com I hope this won’t confuse folks too much….

Document-wise, it’s also been something of an admin day, so I haven’t eally needed to work on any documents in Zoho.

However, I have needed to do some digital photo editing – resizing an image – and used the excellent PXN8 for this. So that’s my arguement for Photoshop out the window.

I’m also glad to see that the experiment has been generating interest from around the community blogosphere. David Wilcox wrote on his blog:

I think it is pretty much impossible to understand how useful or not new online tools are for your personal or organisational use without trying them. It’s another world, another language and just translating the technobabble isn’t enough. Packages may seem attractive – but you can land up with costly disappointments. You need to make the trip and explore for yourself.

Of course that takes time and quite a bit of effort, and it helps if someone else can offer insights, focus and encouragement. In short, a guide: but then, they need to have done some serious exploration first.

David also lists the “intriguing School of Everything, being developed by Paul Miller and friends”. Check out their list of tech tools .

Beth Kanter mailed me to say she’s also been meaning to go cold turkey on outlook, but is in the middle of her busiest workflow of the year and hasn’t yet made the jump:

I hope you will write about weening yourself from the comfort blanket that is outlook – I have the exact problem. I have this desire to switch from outlook to gmail, but I haven’t been able to shift my habit at or event think about how to start.

I wrote about that here:
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2006/08/inbox_reveries.html

And, Michael Stein wrote a reply, but six months later, I’m still stuck in outlook.

Aaron Levie from online storage company Box.net also wrote in to let me know that they have now integrated Zoho Writer. You can read about it on the Box.net blog.

I’m already using Box.net to store my working documents, and with one click I can now open my Box.net documents in the Zoho writer – another of the web 2.0 tools I’m playing with. This is a great example of mashing up services and delivering seriously good workflow to the end-user.

I’ll be writing more about Zoho Writer tomorrow, so as always, let me know if you’re thinking about it switching to the web office or you’re already there.