Zoho Writer

Zoho Writer

The use of the Zoho Writer could be of use in the Library system for working with a group of people across the Libraries for working on a special report. It could be useful if your computer doesn't have the word processing, spreadsheet, etc. software on your computer. It can create .pdf files which our present version of Microsoft Word does not do.

I imported a document from Word with no problem, however it does not support WordPerfect documents.

Some of the drawbacks I see to using the software are:
1. You have to be connected to the internet to use it. At work it is no problem, but home use with limited hours could be a problem.
2. You can work on a document offline - then upload it to Zoho Writer and it will update the shared document on line noting the changes.
3. You can keep track of versions which could be useful for a project.
4. The agreement states that they can change from free to charging for the service by notifying you. You have the option of paying or terminating your account. However if you were in the middle of a project that had a tight time line that could cause a problem.
5. Your account will be terminated if it is not use for a long time. - Amount of time is not specified.

The result is I could see using this if need to collaborate with a group of people over an area, or it was a type of software you only use occasionally like a spreadsheet. The problem I see for using it at work is that we do not use a word processor that often so that our account would likely expire before we needed it again.

I would want to make sure that any documents were easily moved between work / home software packages and I kept a copy of any relevant documents on my own computer. Since I use WordPerfect at home I would have to convert the files to html before transferring them since it is one one format that can be use.

I wrote this blog in Zoho Writer and published it from there.