In this post I’ll be discussing cloud based options for creating documents through your browser. In my earlier posts you probably noticed that I enjoy working through a web browser thanks to the expansion of technology and the ubiquity of the Internet. This excellent expansion has turned the physical office into a virtual office and it’s to a point where a person can purchase a 10 inch computer with the most basic software and still get the full office computer experience at little-to-no extra cost.

These options range from free to subscription based services but the starting costs is much lower than the current costs of word-processing programs. These programs are compatible with your current documents and a couple will allow to save to different formats that you can export (download) to your computer. The documents that you create and edit are kept in your personal account on the site, so there is no worry of your computer crashing and losing all the informations because the information is on servers far away ready to be accessed. Most of these servers have 99.9% uptime, so don’t worry about servers crashing. You will need to have high-speed Internet to access these files and edit them but, as stated above, Internet is ubiquitous.

First, I’ll discuss my personal favorite , Google Docs. Now this was created by the search engine giant and maintained by the Google Corporation. OK, I am a Google fan boy, but they do offer great products and services. Google Docs is free to use and handles all Microsoft Word documents. They offer creation and editing of documents, excel sheets, presentations, and forms(Access). For the price of ‘FREE’ you can share the documents via email or Google accounts and also collaborate on documents. The document creation is basic and doesn’t offer advanced document creation like borders or graphic art, but it gets the job done. Try it out for yourself!

Next, let’s talk about the Adobe Acrobat web application, Acrobat.com. This is about the same as the Google Docs word processing by creating and editing new documents and offering the option to share and collaborate with other authors, but with Adobe Acrobat.com you can create PDFs. It is a subscription based service but Adobe offers PDF creation, web conferencing, presentation creation, form creation, but no excel sheets. It’s very clean and the collaboration factor is very image oriented, so it’s much prettier to look at for longer time. Try it for yourself!

Lastly, the big web application company Zoho offers great options. It’s not free after a set amount of users (or space) but you get access to a lot of other applications. Zoho has a great user interface for word processing and sharing is easy just like the other options, so it’s really based on preference. What sets Zoho apart is the other applications offered by Zoho can be accessed under one login. Some are free and some are subscription based, but its very worth it if you need the option of the whole complete package. The down side is that you will start paying sooner or later if you use the applications enough. So, if you need to word process, create reports, CRM, and add a Wiki to your work; then this is the place for you! Try it out!

Overall, each option offers their pros and cons for using the web application, and it’s really up to preference. If you want to carry you office your laptop bag with no worries of cost and losing information, then one of these options could be right for you!

Let me know what you think by email or leaving a comment. If there are other options that you want me to review or discuss just let me know.