Google Docs & Spreadsheets

Google has gone a step further in its rivalry with Microsoft. It has launched a brand new service, called Google Docs & Spreadsheets. This is an online document creation and management system. Google had earlier launched Google Spreadsheets. They soon became very popular, and for obvious reasons. They were completely free. They were online, and so could be accessed from anywhere. And they could be shared with anyone you want to. Now, Google has integrated power of text documents also with this service, and has renamed this as Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Earlier, there was a separate website especially for creating and managing online text documents. It was www.writely.com. It had exactly the same concept as Google Spreadsheets. So, Google simply took over that website, and amalgamated it with their already existing spreadsheets, to complete the suite.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets can basically be considered as your small, free, online office suite. To access this, you need to be connected to internet. The website for this is docs.google.com. Once you go to this website, you need to sign in with your Google id. You can create one if you do not have already. As is with most Google services, this service is also completely free of cost. You do not need to download any software to use this service. Also, the best part is that you can upload your existing documents also. It supports lot of different formats, such as doc, RTF etc.

Here's what you can do with documents:

• Upload Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text (or create documents from scratch).
• Use Google's simple WYSIWYG editor to format your documents, spell-check them, etc.
• Invite others (by e-mail address) to edit or view your documents and spreadsheets.
• Edit documents online with whomever you choose.
• View your documents' and spreadsheets' revision history and roll back to any version.
• Publish documents and spreadsheets online to the world, as Web pages or post documents to your blog.
• Download documents to your desktop as Word, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF, HTML or zip.
• Email your documents out as attachments.

Here's what you can do with spreadhsheets:

• Import and export of .xls, .csv, and .ods formatted data (and export functionality for .pdf and .html).
• Enjoy intuitive navigation and editing, like any traditional document or spreadsheet.
• Use formatting and formula editing in spreadsheets so you can calculate results and make your data look the way you want it.
• Chat in real time with others who are editing your spreadsheet.
• Embed a spreadsheet, or a piece of a spreadsheet, in your blog or website.

(Above listing of features has been taken from Google website).

You can can create/upload a large number of documents in this. Limit for documents is 10,000 per user and limit for spreadsheets is 2000 per user!!! It should be difficult to exceed that number.

The best part of this service is that it lets you collaborate. Suppose you have created a document, and you want to share it with your friend. You can do so very easily. Also, your friend can also edit the document. In fact, multiple users can edit the document. This seems to be a completely new step in collaboration. This kind of sharing was earlier unheard of (Now Microsoft has also provided this kind of collaboration with their Office Live, but at a huge cost, like always).
So, is Google Docs & Spreadsheets a complete replacement for Microsoft Office? Not really. Its not very easy to create new documents in Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Lots of features of Microsoft Office are missing in this. But, Google is catching up fast. Right now, this service can be best used for those documents which you need to access at lots of places. And it provides really good collaboration. So, I would still love to create documents using Microsoft Office, upload them in Google Docs, and let my friends modify them online. That would be like best of all the worlds!