If you a looking for an alternative to OpenOffice, web applications are becoming an extremely good option. Of course. Most people know about Google Docs, but there are many other alternatives. In order to help you narrow your search, below is a list of some of your options as well as a short description.

• Google Docs - Most people probably already know about this, but I just have to mention it. This is pretty much the standard for online word processors, and it is what I use. The interface is the standard minimalist Google design and, of course, it exports to all sorts of formats, including Microsoft Word (.doc, not .docx) and HTML. Not surprisingly, Google Docs supports Google Gears, allowing you to do your word processing offline.
• Adobe Buzzword - Now part of Acrobat.com, Buzzword is another very well known one. I would say the main difference between Google Docs and Buzzword is that Buzzword’s interface feels much richer and more visually interesting. The formatting options for Buzzword are also quite extensive. Finally, the change tracking is great, allowing you to easy revert back to just about any point in time.
• Zoho Writer - Zoho Writer is something of a mix between Buzzword and Google Docs. It has elements of Google’s minimalist style, while also having many of the formatting options of Buzzword. It also lets you have tabs with a document in each tab and supports Google Gears.
• Peepel - Peepel’s interface has two interesting aspects to it. First, it gives you windows inside of your browser window. This means you can open up multiple documents or open up a web browser (don’t ask me why you would use a web browser to open a web browser) or a calculator. Personally, I am not a fan of this, but you might disagree. The second interesting aspect of it is that it mimics Microsoft Office 2007. Now, I do think that the Office 2007 interface is nice, but Peepel lacks the only feature of Office that I think is really cool - the ability to highlight text and have instant access to basic formatting. Still, if you are familiar with Office 2007, you might want to give this one a try.
• WriteBoard - WriteBoard is really different from other online editors. You create a board and then insert some text. Formatting options appear to be very limited and there are no buttons to apply them. Instead, you do something like this to make text bold: *text*. The idea is sort of an online whiteboard for a few people to collaborate on. This is probably not your best option for day to day tasks, but I can certainly see this coming in handy in the occasional situation.

Hopefully this will give you some new web applications to try, and you might just like one of them more than what you have now.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Linux Applications, Online, Summary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.