Friday, October 26, 2007

Thing #8: Try Out Either Google Documents or Zoho

Description:

Google Documents and Zoho are online wordprocessors. Well, actually, they are suites of productivity software, including spreadsheets, presentation software and the like. I even showed you a demo earlier on that described why these products are important. Now, I just want you to try it out. Create a document. Write out a brief letter, or fill in some blanks in the spreadsheet. That's all.

Hints:

  • Common theme -- you will have to sign up with the service, and that may require an email. The good news is if you've signed up with Blogger to get your blog, you can use your Google ID to use Google documents.
  • Another Common theme -- Both Google Documents and Zoho use a WYSIWYG, just like your blog and just like the wikis before it. This may seem just like repetition of your blog!
  • There are alot of features available, including the ability to share your document with others and publish it to the Web. How far you go is up to you, but I only expect you to play around with a few things on the page.
Resources:

3 comments:

Maureen said...

I created a document with Google Documents and it was very easy. I'm having trouble connecting my blog with Google Documents. The link does not seem to be active. I will try again tomorrow.

Ryan Deschamps said...

Not sure what the specific issue is, but I do know that you have to "publish" a document before you can make a link for on your blog. "Publish"ing will make your work available to the web. You can also "collaborate," letting others see or edit the article, but that requires a tie to an email address.

BreakoutBoxHPL said...

If nothing else, there's always good'ol cut'n'paste.

I could only get mine to my blog after I saved it (to the Google Doc account), and then publishing it. There may be a more direct way, but I don't know it.

I think its nifty that they made a function to save the file as a pdf...even my processor at home doesn't do that! Lousy Commodores...