Google Docs Goes Offline
Google has moved one step deeper into Microsoft territory by enabling users of its Google Docs online service to edit documents offline. It’s also dipping its corporate toes in Telstra BigPond waters.
Google Docs is a word processing tool that you access online, via a web browser.
It’s part of Google’s free online suite of office software, which also includes a spreadsheet and a PowerPoint-style presentations application.
Since you don’t have to pay for these tools, Google has been hoping to take business away from Microsoft, whose Office suite is a bit pricey in the view of some folk. (In Australia, MS Office prices range from $249 to $1150).
It’s not just the money. There can be other advantages to working online.
For instance: since the essential software and your documents are stored on Google’s servers, they don’t take up space on your computer’s hard drive.
What’s more you can access them from any computer that’s connected to the internet and you can even share the documents with other users to whom you have given permission.
It’s a great system for workgroups spread across different offices to collaborate on a single document, but until recently it has been impossible to work on your documents when you’re offline, for instance on an aircraft or a train.
That has changed with the new addition to Google Docs.
Once you sign up, copies of the documents you create online will automatically download to your PC desktop.
You can edit them, still within your web browser, even when you’re not connected to the internet: just direct the browser to docs.google.com.
When you reconnect, Google Docs will automatically sync the two versions of your document - the one on your desktop and the one on Google’s server - so you always have the latest version at your fingertips.
The sync is handled by software called Google Gears, which you must install before you can take advantage of the offline feature.
Right now, the system works only with the Docs word processor, but it will eventually be extended to the spreadsheet and presentation applications.
It works with Windows PCs, Apple Macs, Linux computers, and even some handheld devices.
Is all this really going to worry Microsoft? The software giant has previously poured scorn on the Google product, claiming Docs is not suitable for power users, since it lacks support for features such as headers, footers, tables-of-contents and footnotes.
There are some other things you can’t do when you’re working on a Google document offline.
You can’t, for instance, create a new document, insert a picture or check your spelling - those matters must wait until you are back online.
These are fairly substantial omissions if Google wants to be seen as a serious competitor to Microsoft.
No doubt its software engineers are working on them.
Security is another concern for some. As one blogger wrote last week:
“Having access to your documents from any computer anywhere is a powerful productivity enhancement, but quite frankly I work with a lot of documents that should never leave the walls of my office - and I’m just small potatoes.”
If you’re unworried by such concerns, and you have no use for headers or footers, you’ll probably find the much-improved Google Docs a pretty neat offering.
It’s by no means the only free online office software. Two alternative offerings come from Zoho and ThinkFree.
Telstra’s BigPond internet service also offers a free suite based on ThinkFree - indeed Aussies will find themselves redirected there if they click on Thinkfree.com.
BigPond members can access the online suite of word processing, spreadsheets and presentations software free of charge. They can store up to 250MB of documents online.
For a monthly fee ($6.95 for BigPond members, $7.95 for others), you can upgrade to BigPond Office DocBoss, which allows you to work on your documents offline as well as online - just as with Google Docs.
For that fee the online storage allowance is upped to 2GB.
Documents are compatible with “other office software suites”, BigPond says.
The systems works with either PCs or Macs, but BigPond warns there are some problems with Apple’s Safari browser. Firefox may be a wiser choice.
Will BigPond be able to maintain its monthly charges for offline access while Google Docs comes totally free? We’ll have to wait and see.
Docs, remember, does not yet offer offline work on spreadsheets and presentations: BigPond does. And there’s no guarantee Docs will always be free: the freebie now on offer is a beta version, and things could change when the finished version is rolled out.
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