There are few things in life that a truly free, and often those things that are free wind up being much less useful than their paid counterparts. Luckily this is not the case with a free office suite of tools made and provided free of charge by none other than industry giant, Google.
Google is well known for its search engine, but few stop to take a look at the many other free online goodies that Google provides. One of these little trinkets is called Google Docs. Google Docs is a free, online word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application similar in form and function to Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org. To use the service, a patron need only create a free Google account which then grants access to all of the Docs tools as well as dozens of others. Documents created in Google Docs are stored on Google's servers, making them available anywhere and any time that you have access to the Internet. The downside of this is of course the security of your documents, and users should probably not be storing sensitive or important financial or other information on the Docs service. That having been said, the sheer convenience of being able to access your data from any computer, anywhere in the world is a great feeling and one that definitely has merit.
The most commonly used Docs tools include the word processor and spreadsheet, both of which operate in a very standard way. Buttons are available for all the most commonly used formatting techniques, including center/right/left justification, font size, font style, colored text, bold, italics, and underline as well as many others. In the spreadsheet all common mathematical functions are available, and cells can be linked from sheet to sheet exactly as in a stand-alone spreadsheet program. In the presentation application, users can create a basic PowerPoint style slide show that, while not as full featured or attractive as the real thing, still does the job in a pinch.
All of these technologies are free to use thanks to Google. Visit http://docs.google.com to give them a try.
Google is well known for its search engine, but few stop to take a look at the many other free online goodies that Google provides. One of these little trinkets is called Google Docs. Google Docs is a free, online word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application similar in form and function to Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org. To use the service, a patron need only create a free Google account which then grants access to all of the Docs tools as well as dozens of others. Documents created in Google Docs are stored on Google's servers, making them available anywhere and any time that you have access to the Internet. The downside of this is of course the security of your documents, and users should probably not be storing sensitive or important financial or other information on the Docs service. That having been said, the sheer convenience of being able to access your data from any computer, anywhere in the world is a great feeling and one that definitely has merit.
The most commonly used Docs tools include the word processor and spreadsheet, both of which operate in a very standard way. Buttons are available for all the most commonly used formatting techniques, including center/right/left justification, font size, font style, colored text, bold, italics, and underline as well as many others. In the spreadsheet all common mathematical functions are available, and cells can be linked from sheet to sheet exactly as in a stand-alone spreadsheet program. In the presentation application, users can create a basic PowerPoint style slide show that, while not as full featured or attractive as the real thing, still does the job in a pinch.
All of these technologies are free to use thanks to Google. Visit http://docs.google.com to give them a try.
