#18 (Week 8) A review of online word processors typed in Zoho writer and published to this blog.

Online Word Processors

• AjaxWrite: It doesn't seem to have all of the features that Zoho has, but I like the clean and simple interface
  
• Adobe Buzzword: This app is very slick.  I like the interface better than Zoho, but it crashed while I was using it so it doesn't seem to have matured yet. Also doesn't have all the features that Zoho Writer has.
  
• Docly:crowded GUI, has all the features of Zoho Writer but I got an error message when I tried inserting a photo.  Docly's signature feature seems to be that it "automatically assigns copyrights (both All Rights Reserved and Creative Commons) licenses to all published Docly Documents"
• FlyWord:I couldn't get this one to load! It asked if I wanted to download Flyword to my computer.  I didn't bother.  I also ran across grammar errors on the site: "On Windows, FlyWord don't need Java anymore."- never a good sign.
• Google Docs:I love these apps! Google seems to get it all right.  The interface is clean and simple but it has all of the features that Zoho Writer has.  Given that gmail works so well, I'll probably use Google docs as my default online writing app.
  
• iNetWord: Basically the same as Zoho Writer.  I was annoyed that I was required to give a phone number to register.
  
• LaTexLab - web based LaTeX editor: Still under construction.  I got this alert: " This tool is in the development stage. The following options are not available:File sharing across users"
• Nevrocode Docs: Like FlyWord, Nevrocode is a desktop and web app, so you have to download the program before you use it.  This is a model that works, but I prefer the apps that are completely online.
  
• PDSText- free online Unicode text editor for Indian languages:Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi, and English. It has basic features.
• Rallypoint: There are a few companies with the name Rallypoint.  As near as I can tell the online word app is www.rallypointhq.com, but the server was down when I tried to go there.
  
• ThinkFree Office ThinkFree is similar to Zoho writer and Google Docs.
• ZCubes describes itself as web 3.0 so that you can"express without limits."  The demos look great, but I couldn't use the text editor without downloading a plugin for firefox.  Looks like there are a lot of great ideas here but too overwhelming to the new user.  I think it is one to watch.
• Zoho Writer: Zoho is the app recommended by School Library Learning 2.0 and the one I've compared to all of these others.  I think it is a solid choice for collaborative documents, but I think that Google Docs is better for its clean look and seemless use with gmail and google calendars.

This was a very short survey of online word processors.  I did not look at the other apps that came with most of these like spreadsheets and presentation apps.