Using Google Documents

If you travel for business, or even if you shuttle work between home and the office, you know the feeling of dismay you get when you realize an important document is on the "other" computer. Of course, if you have saved your document to a USB drive you're safe right? Well, I know I have (on more than one occasion) left my USB behind. I have also found out that the location I am going to doesn't support my drive, or for some other reason my drive is useless to me. At this point, the only option you have is to hope someone at home or the office can email your document to you (and hope you can open it).

Ah, but now there is a new solution: Google Documents. This nifty feature from Google allows you to create new work, upload files and share the information from any computer, anywhere. As long as you can access the Internet, you can access your files. Google Documents allows you to work with word processing documents, spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.

This program is guaranteed to be a lifesaver for those who work from remote locations. Of course, Google Documents, like any software program has its good and bad points.

First the good points:

Accessibility

Really any computer anywhere as long as it has Internet access.

Cost

It doesn't cost anything for the service. You must sign up with Google and create an account, but that is a free service and once you have a Google account you have access to all their features: calendar, groups, email, documents.

Portability

Google Documents lets you email the files to anyone. You are assigned a special code to email the documents. You can also download the files to USB drives or hard drives. So you can work remotely then return to the office and save your data on your hard drive.

Sharability

Sharing your files is easy. You can send an email that invites people to look at your document. You can grant access to as many people as you want. Projects that require collaboration can be easily be shared with the members of the group. Each person can easily edit the file. Google Documents has a tool to track the revisions and it is easy to make a comment on the document too. Revised work is saved in a separate folder automatically. The main menu also lists all documents you have on file and dates and times of last revisions, not to mention who they are shared with (a great "at a glance" feature).

Google Documents comes with a great tutorial that takes you around to see all the features, and it comes with an easy to navigate tool bar. The format strongly resembles Microsoft Word. So it feels comfortable and familiar as you are working on it.

You may also publish your document as a web page. I can't speak to the success of this feature, as have not used it.

So far, I have not discovered that many bad points to Google Documents. The few I have are:

The word processing portion has limited fonts available. There is a standard spell checker but, there is no grammar check. It does have a great readability index, which tells you how easy it is to understand your document. If you should need to do some fact checking while you are working, you can do a Google search with your document open, which I think is a handy little feature.

Uploading files maybe a bit of a problem. If you use Microsoft Works, you will have to convert your files to .RTF or you will not be able to upload them. Google Documents does allow you to upload .ODT and .SXW files. There is a limit to the amount of data that can be uploaded, depending on if it is coming from an email or from a website.

All in all, Google Documents is a great tool for anyone who finds themselves away from their desktop computer often or for someone who wants to skip the hassle of a USB drive. I don't think you would work on an extremely large project using Google Documents, but it is a great way to collaborate with other members of a team on a small or mid-sized project.