My situation is certainly not unique. I run a small side business where I manage web servers for clients. I do everything from setting up new sites to managing backup and restore processes. Simple enough, but doing all this requires a lot of communication between clients and myself, so I have to create and maintain a lot of documentation so I don’t have to dig through emails whenever I need to reference something. Since I work from 3 different machines (work/day job computer, home desktop and a laptop), the problem of having readily available access to these documents is a barrier as all my side business files are stored on my home desktop.

I needed a way to access these files from any of my computers… instantly, so using an online office suite seemed like a good idea. Before considering a switch, I had to make sure what I used offered the functions I simply had to have:

• Typical office document functionality: undo, basic spreadsheet formula and sorting functions, embedded pictures, etc.
• Ability to open and save common file types such as doc and xls.
• Simple to use editor which is not annoying (I don’t want to have to end up using an HTML editor to “fix” things).
• Access to an API. I take the “automate first, ask questions later” approach which dramatically cuts down my workload for mundane tasks. Anything I can have done automatically, such as updating a spreadsheet when a new site is created, I do through automated macros.
• Fast.
• Free.

Since I’m already a Gmail user for email, the only other office applications I needed were a word processor and spreadsheet editor. To make a long story short, the first suite I looked at was the one I ended up going with: Google Docs.

Why Use An Online Office Suite?

…Especially when there are free alternatives, such as the ever popular and feature rich OpenOffice suite? There are several reasons, but at the front of the list is convenience.

To quickly recap my situation, I have to write and keep lots of documentation for both myself and clients. Most of this is done in the form of email, however I have several spreadsheets and traditional [Word] documents I use to present information. If I used the standard desktop application (lets assume OpenOffice, since it is free), I would need to:

• Have OpenOffice installed on each of my 3 machines (home desktop, laptop, work desktop).
• Set the preferences for the applications (such as auto-formatting, “learned” custom spellings) to be consistent on each of the installations.
• Keep a repository of all my documents somewhere mutually accessible. I would either need to use an FTP site, an online storage service, email updated documents to myself, carry a USB drive with me, etc.
• Alternately, I could keep my home desktop on all the time and access it through Terminal Services, but I don’t like to do this because I leave my home computer off during the day to save power.

Of course, all of the above “requirements” add unneeded overhead to simply editing or accessing a document. So much that realistically, I end up doing something like emailing myself what I need to do and then using a single machine (my home desktop) to do all the editing. I do not like this option because it creates twice the work and allows me to easily forget or procrastinate actually doing it.

Google Docs: The Solution

Now let’s consider my scenario using only Google Docs.

First, and the most obvious, is no software needs to be installed on any of the machines (with the exception of a modern browser which is a given).

Second, all documents are stored online with virtually unlimited space. This means I can easily open, edit and save my documents from any computer with Internet access. Additionally, Google Docs allows you to export your documents to all common file formats (doc, xls, pdf, txt, rtf, odf, etc.), but even better is the ability to “share” documents online so I can simply send a URL link in an email which gives instant access to the most recent version. More-so, I can allow other users to edit the document by setting the appropriate permissions. I do this with a spreadsheet I keep which has all the domain names and IP addresses I am managing to allow my client to enter notes. So whenever either of us accesses the spreadsheet, we see the most updated version. Google really touts these collaboration features, and rightfully so, they are amazingly simple and effective.

You might be thinking a big drawback to using an online only office suite is you wouldn’t be able to open documents by double-clicking on them or accessing them via any traditional method. I agree, if you had to download these files and then upload each one individually to access them, it would be unacceptable. Instead, through the Google Toolbar for Firefox, I have the “Docs & Spreadsheets” option selected which sets Google Docs to be the default application for office (doc, xls, etc.) files. So when I need to open a document from my local machine, an email attachment, website, etc., I just access it like normal and it opens right up in Google Docs, just like it would in OpenOffice.

For the most part, I use spreadsheets (with formulas) to keep track of… well, typical spreadsheet data. Additionally, I create a lot of walk-through style documentation with embedded screenshots. Being totally honest, the difference in the time it takes me to produce these in either Google Docs or a locally installed program is negligible. In fact, when you consider the accessibility discussed above, Google Docs actually wins as a whole for me.

Being Practical

Of course, using only an online office suite is not an entire cakewalk. There are many sacrifices (when compared to a desktop suite) which come with the convenience. In summary, I have put together a quick rundown of some of the pros and cons to using Google Docs.
Pros

• Convenience.
• Requires no software, other than what you are reading this article with.
• Can save to and open all common formats.
• Designed with collaboration in mind.
• Typical functionality with some complex tools, such as spell check, tables in documents and graphs in spreadsheets.
• Keeps track of all revisions and previous versions (version control).
• New features added fairly often.
• Available API.

Cons

• Not as fast as a program installed on your computer.
• Limited advanced tools, such as spreadsheet cross-tabs and a built in thesaurus.
• Can only be used when you are online.
• Size limitation on documents.
• Some documents may not import correctly if they are above the size limitation or they use functions not yet implemented in Google Docs.

Can Google Docs Replace Desktop Office Suites?

Granted, exclusively using an online office suite isn’t for everyone, but it works very well for me. I’ve been using Google Docs as the only office suite on my home computer for about 2 months now and I don’t see any need to change this.

The biggest question though, is can it replace a locally installed office suite for a “typical” user? If you already are accustomed to web based email, then from a feature and usability standpoint, I actually believe it can. However, the perceived need for users to have an office suite installed locally is most likely not going to make a switch happen for a long time. Due to the fantastic collaboration features, from a web publishing standpoint, I do not think there is any better tool to use than Google Docs.

Users who do advanced and complex tasks will want to stay away, but if you work from several places, your needs are not far beyond basic functionality and are feeling a bit adventurous, uninstall your office suite and give Google Docs a try.