Google Docs & Spreadsheets

Google's new Docs & Spreadsheet (http://docs.google.com/) is pretty impressive.

It does pretty much everything that Microsoft's Word and Excel does, you can even export your files so that they're compatible with Office.

Google Documents does everything word does except the extras like Table of contents. There's an auto spell check, options to insert objects, and word counts. There's also an option to edit the document in HTML mode for web site users.


Google Documents does not have a thesaurus though, and it also doesn't have an option for footers so you can't really label page numbers.

The formulas in the Spreadsheet program include the basics from sum to average, and even includes the financial formulas like NPV and Nominal. The spreadsheet can merge cells and it can add additional sheets.

One drawback is when you type in a formula you can't navigate with the arrow keys after, you basically have to select either with the mouse or typing. You can navigate around with the arrow keys when you're not in the middle of the formula though. Also there is no option to create a pivot table, but who uses pivot tables? One big problem I saw was that I couldn't find a charts option, or maybe I just don't see the option.

All in all Google Docs & Spreadsheets is great program, it does everything I need it to do and then some. Great alternative to the costly Microsoft Office, and as long as you have internet access, you can use it anywhere.