Google is constantly adding to its library of extra services, applications and capabilities. There is much more behind the search page, and I encourage everyone to explore. The Freeware Frenzy column has covered some Google apps in the past, including SketchUp, Earth, and Desktop. I can assure you that more will surely appear in the future. Today’s column will cover Docs and Spreadsheets; the Google way to store your documents and spreadsheets online, work on them from any PC online, and save them for sharing with friends and colleagues. Let’s see if the mighty Google has created worthwhile addition to their collection of other extras or if this app should have stayed in Beta awhile longer. 

As an online service, installation is non-existent. Simply login to Google with your Gmail address and password, setup a Google account if you have not already, and you’re ready to go. You can begin in one of two ways; uploading some existing documents from your computer or starting fresh online. I chose to upload a couple of files to see how well Google could handle them. For my Word document, I chose last week’s TrueCrypt review, complete with links, formatting and pictures. From a spreadsheet, I pulled up a school statistics report with plenty of formulas, separate sheets and graphs. So let’s check them out.

Documents
My Word document came through with flying colors. All formatting, links and embedded JPGs were correctly preserved. As for editing the document, all of the basic options are there along the top, organized with tabs. File lets you save the document as HTML, RTF (rich text format), Word Document, OpenOffice file (kudos to Google for supporting open source software) or PDF. There is also a word count for any of you students hoping that you made it to 1000 words for your professor. Edit has all the staples that we have come to expect in a word processor; bold, underline, italic, fonts, colors, bullets and numbering, alignment and spacing. Insert is a bit simplified, but with options for links, images, tables and special characters, you’ll find what you need for most situations. Revisions is a handy tab because it keeps multiple copies of the document stored each time you make a change. Then you can even compare two of them to see which version is superior. Any differences show up in green, strikeout text. Finally, use the Collaborate and Publish tabs to share you work with others. With Collaborate, you can send invites to your acquaintances via email to view and edit the documents you chose to share. Publish will give you a unique URL to share with others to view the work. You can also send the work to a personal blog, if you have one. Now that have covered Documents, let’s move on to spreadsheets.

Spreadsheets
Uploading my test spreadsheet went smoothly, but the results were lacking, especially compared to how well my Word document came through. Only some of my cell data was present and my graphs were missing completely. I somehow ended up with seven sheets, compared to the original five, apparently caused by the graphs. I also had some mix ups; the "Histograms" sheet contained all of the "Descriptive Statistics" but none of the histograms! Wondering if this was a problem with all online editors, I uploaded the same spreadsheet to Thinkfree, a similar online editor which I have reviewed in the past. While the results were not perfect here either, some of the graphs came through, and all of the data did. But good enough is not going to work for me, and for many others. Since the online editors were having issues, I decided to download the file to my machine to work on it locally. This may defeat the purpose of an online editor, but when problems arise, solutions must be found. I downloaded the spreadsheet back from both Thinkfree and Google Docs, and opened Excel. While the file from Thinkfree came through without any of the online issues, and looking exactly like the source file, Google’s was not so fortunate. All of the online issues were preserved in the download. This leads me to believe that Thinkfree’s Java-based editor merely mis-rendered the file online, but Google’s editor misread the file entirely. In the following screenshots, you’ll see the same spreadsheet, first in Google, then in Excel. Note the clear differences.

So to conclude, I have to continue to recommend Thinkfree. Google works well for documents and online creation, but it faired too poorly with spreadsheets. Thinkfree can handle Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint to boot. While it also had some issues, it still faired much better then Google’s offering. You can try Google Docs and Spreadsheets yourself here: http://docs.google.com