Fugitive Thought

Recently, Google quietly began placing some of their newer projects and acquisitions into the spotlight. An excellent example has presented itself, particularly with respect to GMail and the related web app, Google Docs and Spreadsheets. A recent update to the GMail feature set highlights increased integration of the many Google projects:

Gmail users receiving attached documents now have the ability to view them via Google Docs and Spreadsheets, which presents a sleek in-browser word processor interface. Emails arriving with a document attached will now display a "open as a google document" in addition to the usual "View as HTML" and "Download" options.

Clicking on this new option shows the Google Docs interface as shown here:

The Google Docs interface is quite feature complete for most users. The expected text functions are present: font face, size and style, justification, lists and bullets, line spacing, undo history, spell check, tables, embedding of multimedia, etc. Extremely important, of course, are the formats to which it is able to export: Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF, and HTML. I have tested each with a variety of document setups (both imported and exported), and whereas Writely occasionally had some issues, Google Docs has these functions perfected. In addition to saving files in common formats, Google Docs permits the publishing of a document directly to a blog - several common blogging providers are supported including Google's own Blogger, Wordpress, and LiveJournal. One HIGHLY useful function is a preserved revision history, allowing one to revert to a previous version instantly. Finally, the collaborative functions of the interface should not be undervalued; it is exceptionally simple to invite another person to view and/or edit the document (revisions tracked by individual of course).

The end result is really quite useable, much like the Writely interface from which the bulk of Google Docs has been constructed. For more on Writely and Google, read on.

For quite some time, Google's purchase of Upstartle's Writely in March 2006 seemed to be dormant. Finally, last October marked the full incorporation of Writely into Google - gone was the Writely brand with Google in its place. It was then that Google Docs & Spreadsheets was launched with some considerable fanfare (970 diggs all told). The Docs & Spreadsheets interface allows for a complete word processing experience entirely for free, complete with collaboration in publishing, document sharing, and with the added benefit of integration into Google's most popular products.

Curiously, some leftovers from the Writely migration to Google remain:

Breaking the news of Google Docs debut, Techcrunch also asserted that this latest move by the search giant was "a shot across the bow of Microsoft Office." While this remains to be seen, these latest developments point towards a more aggressive future. It is certain, however, that as we migrate towards a network-aware mode of computing, products such as these shall become the norm, and the advantages they afford will far outweigh those of more traditional applications.