An excellent online word processor, Zoho Writer can easily replace Microsoft Word for many homes and small offices. And, because it is free to use, you cannot beat the price.
Like other online word processors, Zoho Writer doesn't offer some of the advanced features of desktop word processors. But it makes up for it with one of the richest feature sets of any online word processor.
Pros
- Easy-to-use interface allows you to hit the ground running
- 19 different fonts give Zoho Writer the variety that many online word processors lack
- Part of the Zoho office suite which is the most comprehensive online office package
- Compatible with Google Gears which allows working offline
Cons
- No as-you-type spell checking
- Can't indent only the first sentence of a paragraph
Features
- WYSIWYG editor
- Export documents to a wide variety of formats including Microsoft Word, PDF, Rich Text and HTML.
- Publish documents to the web or to your blog
- Full revision history including the ability to rollback to previous versions
- Collaborate by sharing your document with friends or colleagues
Zoho Writer - What's To Like
Zoho Writer is one of the most complete online word processors and easily rivals desktop word processors for day-to-day usage. In addition to having a WYSIWYG editor and over a dozen fonts, Zoho Writer has the ability to insert tables, links, html, and images into documents.
The easy-to-use interface isn't quite as slick as rival Buzzword's interface, but it easily outmatches the plain interface of Google Docs.
Through the use of Google Gears, Zoho Writer allows you to work offline, so you can save your docs to your computer. It also supports a tagging system that allows you to organize your documents by tag and create folders from popular tags.
One nice feature of this online word processor is that it allows you to publish your document straight to a blog, which makes it a handy tool for frequent bloggers. The publish utility supports Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress and TypePad.
Zoho Writer - What's Not To Like
While it is great that Zoho Writer supports tagging, it does not offer the ability to create custom folders outside of making a folder out of a tag. Which means if you want to separate your documents as work documents or home documents you have to tag each of them as either 'work' or 'home'.
Also, while Zoho Writer offers a spell checker, it does not check spelling as you type. This can be an issue with those of us who have grown used to seeing instant notification of misspelling and who might have grown accustomed to not doing a manual spell check.
Zoho Writer - The Bottom Line
Zoho Writer is among the best online word processors on the market. While it doesn't support advanced functionality like master documents and embedding spreadsheets or presentations within a document, it can easily replace the desktop word processor in most homes and small offices.
