Microsoft Word vs Google Docs - Comments Page 1

Nothing Google provides is free. They have the ability to take data from your documents to sell to marketers, which is how they make their money. I don't know why we continue the fiction that Google provides anything out of the goodness of their heart. They have a corporate interest in people storing their information on the Google database so they can use it. If that doesn't bother you, and it appears no Google or Facebook or Twitter user cares about privacy these days, then go for it, but remember that anything you store on Google will be used by Google if there is a monetary use for it.

Sounds good. However, i would be concerned in areas where there is poor internet access (dialup or lost connections).

I've been using Open Office for everything and have no complaints ... except, that when someone send a DOCX file I cannot open it. Does Google Docs handle those better?

Use Abiword instead of MS Word.
http://abisource.com/

Use Open Office or LibreOffice if you need to replace the whole MS Office suite.

http://www.openoffice.org/
https://www.libreoffice.org/

I liked your assessment of Google Docs and especially its comparison with Word's online version. I'd love to hear your thoughts about zoho writer. I use the Zoho suite often and really like it. It's word processor (which I use most) has a lot of functions and is clear and easy to use.
It does have the problem of less free storage space, but I've linked it to Skydrive, so in practice they feel like one program.

I didn't see any mention of Open Office, a free version of Word that is easily usable.........

I use Chrome and Gmail from Google but have never tried Google Docs. The reason is because I am pretty sure (correct me if I am wrong!) that you cannot automate your work using VBA. I have developed quite complex templates with many macros that make my daily work easier.
Regards
Nick

You could have mentioned another avenue - using LibreOffice (or OpenOffice) - both extremely similar to Word, installed on your own PC and FREE.

"Word Web App is [...] free for non-commercial users".

No, it is not free after a 30 days trial, at least not in Europe.

You might also consider using Open Office 3.3 which is a free multi-part program that does 'word' & 'excel' type programs.

I would recommend LibreOffice (formerly OpenOffice). It does 95% of everything that the MS Office programs do (word processing, spreadsheet, database, and more) and its free and well supported by the open software community. I found it fairly easy to convert from the MS Office software and you can save files in a variety of MS formats. An excellent alternative if you don't need the cloud.

Try this free office suite; OpenOffice.org 3.3. It's a full 11 function office package that's resident in your very own computer, not out there floating around in the cyber-cloud, dependent on a reliable internet connection.

Stubbornly Old Fashioned(but reliable) Phil

Switched to Open Office several years ago and haven't looked back. I'm not comfortable leaving confidential material on some server "in the cloud".

Bob, you forgot to mention the fact that if his new computer is windows based, he does in fact have a built in word processor. It is WordPad which I use all the time to rough out my documents. It works great and has enough formatting options for creating lightweight to medium documents.

You could have mentioned "Open Office" as an alternative if he wanted something to use locally if he can't get online. You can't get much better for free.

How does OpenOffice stack up against Google Docs? Is it worth changing from OO to GD?

I use Open Office Libre Writer, which works pretty much the same as Word, and it's just fine -- and it's free!

Cloud computing is great if you're in a 1st-world environment: outside that, it's not an option.
Strict enforcement of monthly bandwidth usage levels mean that storage and retrieval becomes extremely expensive. Some operators in South Africa offer as little as 500MB per month, with the biggest, non-commercial, offering at somewhere around 10GB per month. That's assuming you can get reception in the first place - I'll stick to the PC-based version.

My group chose Google Docs specifically so that "official" documents could be shared. Our users vary in their levels of sophistication, with some being afraid to stray from the familiar. Sadly, when users use different browsers, printed versions of the document look different, some of them bad. Also, it is my impression that some browsers eliminate some of Google Docs' capabilities.

One feature I really miss in Google Docs Spreadsheet is the ability to insert an individual cell. You can only insert a complete row or column. So you have to cut and paste to free up the single cell.