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from the how-do-I-convert-my-existing-files? dept.
Google Docs vs. Microsoft Word: Which works better for business?:
Have you been thinking of reassessing which word processor your business should standardize on? The obvious choices are the two best known: Microsoft Word and Google Docs. But which is better?
Several years ago, the answer to that would have been easy: Microsoft Word for its better editing, formatting and markup tools; Google Docs for its better collaboration. But both applications have been radically updated since then. Word now has live collaboration tools, and Google has added more sophisticated formatting, editing and markup features to Docs.
TFA requires free registration, but the question is an interesting one: Have Google Docs arrived at parity with, or surpassed, Microsoft Word for business needs? How much work is required to transition existing documents, macros, and workflows?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday June 02 2020, @02:02AM (8 children)
when the internet goes down, is all that (should) matter.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @02:47AM (1 child)
Why [office.com]
Not? [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 02 2020, @02:02PM
That answer suffices if you expect the internet to come back up again at some point.
But what if it never does?
Because of some Microsoft technology somewhere that permanently disables the internet. Wouldn't you rather have had your documents safely stored in Microsoft Word?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by richtopia on Tuesday June 02 2020, @04:44AM (1 child)
I've had customers who use both products. They are all bad. Microsoft products used to be the industry standard and more feature complete than Google, but Office 365 keeps providing headaches.
I personally write as much as possible in MarkDown, but that is my personal stuff; I suspect a real business would need something more.
(Score: 2) by julian on Tuesday June 02 2020, @05:50AM
My personal needs are well served by Notepad++ [notepad-plus-plus.org] (Windows), Kate [kate-editor.org] (Linux, KDE), and LibreOffice (available everywhere).
My office needs a lot of collaboration with documents so we do use Google Docs and it's a really great product for what it does. I don't have any technical complaints. I dislike Google as a company and don't use any of their products or services personally (other than watching YouTube with an adblocker). When the Internet goes down, we can't do much anyway, so it doesn't matter that our document collaboration system is temporarily unavailable too. And there are ways to make it work offline, with limited functionality.
We have a few MS Office 365 licenses because occasionally we need to interact with other offices who can't handle open formats, but it's used for little else.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:18AM (1 child)
In any case, why you would want to CC a possible competitor in your daily business processes is what puzzles me.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 02 2020, @02:06PM
I think you mean BCC.
And even BCC doesn't quite capture it, because the sender is not aware that they are BCC'ing.
But it is a feature! Your documents are being safely, invisibly, and secretly archived "in the cloud!" And if it's in the cloud, then it must be good!
This message paid for by the NSA.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:19AM
Huh? Microsoft Office comes in two flavours: pay a one-off price for a single version of the office suite or pay a subscription for Office 365. In both versions, you get desktop apps. Office 365 gives you Windows, macOS, Android and iOS versions of the core apps (a few, such as Access, are available on fewer platforms).
Office encourages you to store documents in OneDrive / OneDrive for Business, but these sync locally. When you edit a document offline, it works. When you reconnect, if two people have edited it then it will report a conflict and open Word or whatever to merge the changes.
You can also use the versions in the web browser.
I've not used Google Docs for ages, but I think they have a similar offline mode.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:25PM
I think not being to access corporate memorabilia is the least of your worries when a modern large organization loses complete Internet access.
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