Opening a word document

Now don't Laugh some people just don't know, you'd be surprised by how many people don't have a copy of Microsoft office, and thus don't know how to open a word document, excel spreadsheet etc etc.

So in this blog we are going to cover some of the free options available to people firstly lets look at Google Docs

Google Docs Found here

is a free service from well Google that lets you open documents of any type, Those of you with a Gmail/Googlemail account will be familiar with the preview document feature, this is a basic version of google docs, which allows you to upload any document type open it, edit and save it.

As you can see the interface is Simple, and pretty clutter free. and for a service you don't have to pay for and can access anywhere its great, with a few clicks you can create a new document, email it and store it on the Internet, you could then if you wanted to edit it from the other side of the world!

Pros

• Quick and Easy
• Simple
• Online document creation and storage
• Links to your Google account (Gmail and alike)
• Opens any document type
• works on most if not all operating systems that support modern web browsing

Cons

• Only available online ( so no working without an Internet connection)
• Although Simple misses a lot of features from a more robust product

Open Office Found Here

is a free office suite that is comprised of products comparable to Microsoft office, except its free! now unlike google docs this is a full piece of software that needs downloading and installing on your machine. Last time I checked the download was about 150mb which isn't huge and is in fact alot smaller than Microsoft office for example. The installer is pretty simple :

Press run, Press next, leave it a minute then press next a few more times an its installed

and the Products such as Writer (document editor) looks and feels very similar to some older version of word.

Pros

• More robust than Google Docs
• Available offline once installed
• Opens most document types
• works on Most Operating systems

Cons 

• Needs downloading and Installing
• uses the Open office document format which isn't universally recognised
• Not as quick and clean as Google Docs 

In summary It depends on what you want to do and how you want to do it. for me id rather keep on using Microsoft office but if I had to go for a free product I guess It would be Open Office. however for those that only read the occasional document Google Docs is more than adequate.

so what's your thoughts? let me know

Jobs a good un!

Dan