DISQUS

Adam · 2 years ago

Number 3 really irks me. I also wish that their custom context menu had suggestions for incorrect spelings.

I wish they would incorporate instant messaging (like Gmail). Sometimes I want to discuss a section in real time with my other collaborators.

Rex Hammock · 2 years ago

Okay. I'll admit it once more. I really love it when you get pissed off.

Steve Dovey · 2 years ago

I find that adding extra rows at the end of the spreadsheet can be a real pain in the butt. This mostly happens when working with larger amounts of data.
As far at the offline acces goes, I normally just export it to Excel or word when I know I'll be out of net access areas and then re-import when I'm back online. A bit of a pain but at least I can then access my docs.

Eric · 2 years ago

I'm curious what you mean by "Offline Access". Not that I've played with it that much, but can't you save any document as either .doc or .odt to your hard drive? And thus, edit it offline?

Personally I find the product handy, mostly because its an easy way to keep documents synced between the multiple computers I work on (and the Gmail integration is sweet). Mostly I just write with it though and treat it as an online text editor - formatting is just too basic and too unwieldy to be of any use. For that stuff I just drop the text into the equally free openoffice.org

Diana · 2 years ago

I'm with you. Most of this list applies to the "new" Blogger too. Despite a supposedly WYSIWIG mode and a separate preview, Blogger still can't do something as basic as reliably position a graphic in line with text.

Maybe Google doesn't have any QA, or Macs. Or maybe, accustomed as we are to 10th generation desktop word processors, we've forgotten how primitive most new tools are.

Scott Karp · 2 years ago

Eric,

Offline access means using the same application on the same document. Remembering to save it as a Microsoft Word document before you head to the airport is NOT offline access. I don't have to remember to do anything with my Word files to access them offline.

I agree that it's a "handy" product, but it's got a ways to go.

Ryan Holiday · 2 years ago

Let's not forget the fact that you can't use the FireFox 2.0 spellchecker. It's a 100 times quicker to use than the Google one, yet Docs disables it.

Not a fan.

Ryan

Sean · 2 years ago

No Format Painter.

I really wish they would incorporate that the Format Painter, which you can use to select a piece of text and "copy" the qualities of that text (e.g. bold, centered, font size, etc.) and apply them to another piece of text. I find this the most useful tool on Microsoft applications and have asked for it multiple times, but still never received a response.

Mick Weinstein · 2 years ago

There's a problem copying out or pasting into the docs using a right-click. You have to use CNTR-C, etc. The error message indicates that the problem is with the browser, but I haven't experienced this on any other site, and I'm a power right clicker who does it hundreds of times a day online.

David Jackson · 2 years ago

Glad to see you beat up Google over this, because we (Seeking Alpha) starting using Google Docs and have become totally addicted to them, and want them to improve.

We never expected this, but they've revolutionized our business:

- we're moving all our employees to web based aps to cut our IT requirements. Our main publishing system (financial content) is web based, so everyone needs to be online all the time anyway. We now don't need to purchase MS Office for most employees, and that saves us a ton of money.

- The collaboration of Google Docs has massively raised our efficiency. We just uploaded our phone directory as a Google spreadsheet, and everyone updates their own info themselves. We just worked collaboratively in a Google doc on a press release announcing our China coverage, and it saved us hours.

- Integration with Gmail is key. We get articles submitted to us via email, and instead of having to download an attachment and then open it, gmail plus Google docs allows our editors to open it immediately.

- We're even sharing docs with customers (people who sponsor our free conference call transcripts). We put together a pricing spreadsheet containing various customized purchase options, and they can play with it.

We've also noticed many of the drawbacks you mentioned (thank you for summarizing them so succinctly!), and we'd really like to see them fixed. But even now, Google docs are providing a huge productivity boost and cost saving to us.

Tim · 2 years ago

Add this to the list of things that suck:

I tried several times to publish a document as PDF with images in it. And it keeps shrinking the images down to about 1/5 the size.

And that really sucks!

Tim F · 1 year ago

Google Docs really sucks. Try opening up one of the templates and editing. You ~never~ be able to get your text to line up.

tbr · 4 months ago

I agree. This would have been a perfict fit for a client Im working with. They are a gov neighborhood non-profit, working with neighborhood assoications. I was trying to build some templates for the neighborhood groups to use, and its simply NOT READY.

Using Google docs would have solved several key problems. Knowing whateveryone is using, that they all had access to the same tools, a centralised place for the templates, and revisions etc. It was just too good to pass up trying.

Well, try I did. Several wasted hours later, its just not going to work. The avrage uses will be hopless messing with this. My bigest problem was print vs. screen view. Just not working. Manageing tables within Google Docs was pointless.

What a shame. Give them another couple years, and it may have some value. They simply should have left it in beta. Its going to turn a lot of people off.