Writely

Okay guys, I just got done writing one of my Summer reading papers, and I composed the whole thing on Writely just so I could check it out and write a review here on my blog. So, I'm sure you guys are aware of the concept of replacing programs like Microsoft Office with web based applications. Google is probably the number one company that is trying to accomplish this, though I believe that Microsoft themselves have said that they're moving in that direction.

If you're unfamiliar with the concept, what it is, is instead of having Microsoft Office or OpenOffice on your computer, you'd have web based email, calendar (both Outlook), spreadsheet (Excel), word processing (Word), and presentation (PowerPoint) software. All of the files that you're working on would be held on Google or whoever's servers, and you'd manipulate them with web based interfaces. This makes a lot of sense and allows for increased functionality. First of all, you'l never have to worry about carrying files around on a thumb drive or accidentally leaving your file on your computer at home when you need it somewhere else. Because it is web based, your stuff is accessible from wherever you're at. Second, because things are web based, you can have collabarative documents, where multiple people can work on one file at the same time, from wherever they are. Third, you can integrate other web based technologies, such as RSS to give you updates on changes to documents if they're collabrative or having a dynamic list of all of the things that you're currently working on, kinda like how Netflix has RSS feeds so you can see your queue dynamically on something like Protopage (that's how I do it).

So, Google, as of right now, has email (GMail), caldendar (Google Calendars), spreadsheets (Google Spreadsheets) and word processing (Writely, who Google recently acquired). As you guys know, I am a HUGE fan of GMail and most of you use it as well. Google Calendars is fantastic as well, with the ability to share calendars with other people, and spreadsheets, well, lets just say I haven't used Google Spreadsheets very much, but, I'm sure it's cool! :-)

The subject at hand, is, of course, Writely. I had actually played around with Writely about 8 months ago, right after it first came out. It was pretty nifty but I hadn't had a chance to use it seriously until now.

The whole process feels very much like a traditional word processor. Menus are logical, though there really isn't that much there. One thing that that is a minus on Writely is that there isn't a whole lot of room for formatting. There are only 18 fonts, and font size is limited to 8, 10, 12, 14, 18, 24, and 36. Line spacing will function for the entire PAGE, not just paragraphs. However, if you need to do a block quote, it has that functionality built right in, making it a bit easier to do block quotes (which won't be double spaced, obviously). There isn't any way to do margins, really, so that's another minus.

It might seem like I'm focusing on the minuses right now, and, well, I am. Writely is definitely limited when it comes to formatting. But there are some great plusses and factors that mitigate the minuses. As of right now, the way to look at Writely is as a rough draft builder. It is suited for this for several reasons. It is FAST. Blazingly fast. I don't have OpenOffice preloaded in my system memory, because in general I don't like when programs I'm not using are using system resources, and so when I try to open OpenOffice it takes about thirty seconds to load everything. Writely will be up in an instant, making it more convenient. Another reason that Writely is more convenient is the simple fact that it is web based. There are the obvious features like having your documents avaialable everywhere in the world, but then there are not so obvious features like being able to have your word processor open in a tab right next to another tab that has a page that you are working from. That right there is a super convenient feature; I don't have to switch between programs to get my work done.

So, my recommendation, and what I did, was to get your work done on Writely, then save the document as a .doc or .odt file (Oh, did I neglect to mention? YOU CAN SAVE AS HTML, RTF, WORD, OPENOFFICE, OR PDF!) and bring it over into OpenOffice or Word for finishing work like adjusting page formatting and font size as per your teacher's specifications. Obviously this isn't an ideal solution if you're looking to totally replace your traditional word processor, but the fact that Writely is so convenient to use makes it worth that tiny little lack of functionality, in my mind. If you're working on something over multiple days, it makes more sense to do the bulk of the work on Writely and then bring it into OpenOffice just once, in order to print it. I'm sure that in the future, Google and the Writely team will add even more functionality, so that one day, we'll be able to do everything within Writely itself!

Be sure to check it out, I really like it and will be writing my papers on it from now on. I just won't count on it to format things to Mr. Boyd's exacting standards! :-)