If you use a computer without Office, OpenOffice or similar programs and therefore do not have a program to read create and edit Word documents, Excel tables or Powerpoint presentations, you can use one of the sites with the Office online web applications.
Among these web applications, the best is undoubtedly Google Docs or Google Docs that allows you to open any type of file (even PDFs), has many editing and creation functions and offers 1 GB of free web space in which to store documents.
Google Docs can thus be used as if it were a real program installed on your computer (which must be connected to the internet), as an alternative and replacement for Microsoft Office .
Thanks to a small tool to be installed on the computer, Google Docs can be made the default program for opening Word Excel or Powerpoint documents, therefore the doc, xls, ppt, odt and also, if you want, pdfs.
The best way to open and edit Office files in Google Docs on PC is to use Chrome and the official Google Editor Office extension.
As already explained in another article, thanks to this extension it is possible to edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint files with Google Docs from Chrome.
To work, it is also necessary that Google applications are installed on Chrome to create documents, sheets and slides.
To make Chrome the default program to open Office files, right-click on a DOCX file, select Open With from the context menu and select Chrome if it is listed.
If it is not present in the list, scroll to the end and select the option to choose other apps installed on your computer, among which you will find Chrome.exe.
Once the app is selected, activate the " Always use this app to open this type of file " option.
From now on every file with DOCX extension will be opened in Google Docs on Chrome.
The same can be done with Excel and Powerpoint files.
Alternatively, you can still use the old SyncDocs program (unfortunately no longer free), a client similar to the official Google Drive client, to synchronize files between your computer and the Google Docs web space.
After installing SyncDocs, of which there is also a portable version for USB sticks (which does not require installation), and after entering the credentials of the Google account to access your online archive, all documents, spreadsheets, presentations and other types of files (files of any format and even entire folders can be uploaded to Google Docs).
By installing SyncDocs on other PCs, you will get a complete synchronization of the Google Docs folder so as to find the same files on all the used computers.
Compared to other programs to upload files to Google Docs from desktop, SyncDocs has a different approach, because it is capable of making Google Docs the default program for Office documents, xls, ppt, odp and pdf .
If, during installation, you select the corresponding option, you can ensure that, by double clicking on the computer on any file supported by Google Docs, it is uploaded online and made editable through the web interface of the Google application.
This makes sharing and collaborating with other people on the same documents really easy and makes the use of expensive programs such as Microsft Office unnecessary.
The conversion option allows you to convert the latest Office document formats (docx, xlsx, pptx) to Google Docs format and integration with Windows makes Google Docs the default office suite, associating the DOC, XLS, PPT file formats, ODT and PDF.
When you open a Word or Excel file, it opens on the web browser on the Google Docs site.
A similar program, this time free, available for Windows and Mac, is Gdocsopen, which is used to work on documents both offline (using your favorite Office suite) and online, with Google Docs, always having the latest version of the document on your computer, so you don't depend on an Internet connection to work on it.
Among these web applications, the best is undoubtedly Google Docs or Google Docs that allows you to open any type of file (even PDFs), has many editing and creation functions and offers 1 GB of free web space in which to store documents.
Google Docs can thus be used as if it were a real program installed on your computer (which must be connected to the internet), as an alternative and replacement for Microsoft Office .
Thanks to a small tool to be installed on the computer, Google Docs can be made the default program for opening Word Excel or Powerpoint documents, therefore the doc, xls, ppt, odt and also, if you want, pdfs.
The best way to open and edit Office files in Google Docs on PC is to use Chrome and the official Google Editor Office extension.
As already explained in another article, thanks to this extension it is possible to edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint files with Google Docs from Chrome.
To work, it is also necessary that Google applications are installed on Chrome to create documents, sheets and slides.
To make Chrome the default program to open Office files, right-click on a DOCX file, select Open With from the context menu and select Chrome if it is listed.
If it is not present in the list, scroll to the end and select the option to choose other apps installed on your computer, among which you will find Chrome.exe.
Once the app is selected, activate the " Always use this app to open this type of file " option.
From now on every file with DOCX extension will be opened in Google Docs on Chrome.
The same can be done with Excel and Powerpoint files.
Alternatively, you can still use the old SyncDocs program (unfortunately no longer free), a client similar to the official Google Drive client, to synchronize files between your computer and the Google Docs web space.
After installing SyncDocs, of which there is also a portable version for USB sticks (which does not require installation), and after entering the credentials of the Google account to access your online archive, all documents, spreadsheets, presentations and other types of files (files of any format and even entire folders can be uploaded to Google Docs).
By installing SyncDocs on other PCs, you will get a complete synchronization of the Google Docs folder so as to find the same files on all the used computers.
Compared to other programs to upload files to Google Docs from desktop, SyncDocs has a different approach, because it is capable of making Google Docs the default program for Office documents, xls, ppt, odp and pdf .
If, during installation, you select the corresponding option, you can ensure that, by double clicking on the computer on any file supported by Google Docs, it is uploaded online and made editable through the web interface of the Google application.
This makes sharing and collaborating with other people on the same documents really easy and makes the use of expensive programs such as Microsft Office unnecessary.
The conversion option allows you to convert the latest Office document formats (docx, xlsx, pptx) to Google Docs format and integration with Windows makes Google Docs the default office suite, associating the DOC, XLS, PPT file formats, ODT and PDF.
When you open a Word or Excel file, it opens on the web browser on the Google Docs site.
A similar program, this time free, available for Windows and Mac, is Gdocsopen, which is used to work on documents both offline (using your favorite Office suite) and online, with Google Docs, always having the latest version of the document on your computer, so you don't depend on an Internet connection to work on it.
