Ever since Google launched its web word processing applications, spreadsheets and presentations, it has been questioning whether it is still necessary today to have the Microsoft Office suite installed on your computer with the Word, Escel and Powerpoint programs. To answer this question, we need to consider two parallel points of view, one at the user level, especially talking about the comparison of Google Docs and Microsoft Word and at the business or company level, extending the discussion to the global Google Apps and Office 365 platforms.
Obviously, the first factor to take into consideration when comparing IT solutions is the cost: Google Docs is free while Word and Office cost and are programs that must be paid for and bought.
Since, however, especially in Italy, many people use Office without paying it and since the price may not be a problem if the product works well and meets the needs, we make a comparison between Google Docs and Word and between Microsoft Office and Google Apps .
Google Docs
Just a few years ago, the idea of making a Word-like web writing program was unthinkable.Google Docs has instead opened this field, developing an application more and more similar to normal word processing programs, with all the functions that one would expect.
The great advantage of using Google Docs, now integrated into Google Drive, is the ease of sharing files.
You can then share a file you just wrote with a click, send it via Email to a group of people and allow others to edit or review it, always online.
Both programs have automatic text correction tools and many preconfigured templates to choose from to start writing.
Google Docs is preferable over Microsoft Word for these reasons :
- It is portable, does not require installation on the computer and can be used from any PC, thus giving a big saving in terms of technical assistance and network configuration.
- More than one person can work on the document at the same time, making teamwork much more productive.
- Contains most of the functionality of Microsoft Word.
- It is very easy to use the functions to comment on a piece of text and suggest changes or corrections.
- Google Docs is more fun to use.
- You can chat live with other people on the same window where you write the document.
- You never suffer from computer hardware problems that can slow down the performance of a program like Word.
- You can easily set different permissions for users to share, edit, comment and view.
You can also make a document publicly editable and become an excellent business-level solution.
- Google Docs saves documents in real time on Google Drive, making them always available from any PC or mobile phone or tablet that connects to the internet.
The defects of Google Docs instead are:
- Some interface bugs that seem to give problems in some phases such as when inserting an image.
- The problem that the document resides on Google servers that does not guarantee 100% security and confidentiality as instead it would be keeping the documents on your servers or on your computer (even if 100% security does not exist at any level).
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word has always been the most popular word processor in the world and it still is today even though its popularity has been affected by Google in recent years.Currently the new Office 365 suite offers a suite of programs made for collaborative online work, closely resembling Google Docs.
Office 365 with the cloud versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint can be installed for free but will then require the payment of an annual subscription, both at user level and at company level.
Compared with Google Docs, Word has the following advantages :
- It is more stable and you can edit files with images and other multimedia elements without errors and without bugs.
- With Office 365 you can enjoy most of the features described in Google Docs even if not for free.
- The interface is more complete, with more modification options and better maneuverability.
Office software has many years of experience in document and office management, and this is reflected in the functionality and versatility of Word.
- Microsoft provides many more professional models to start writing a document without having to start from scratch.
All to see is the Microsoft video
The defects of Word instead can be:
- The wealth of options and functions for Word that make the interface confusing for less able people.
- Serious text formatting problems can arise when editing complex and image-rich documents.
- Saving documents online is possible if you configure Office to connect with a Skydrive account but it is certainly more complex.
The Office 365 version obviously doesn't have this problem.
- Word pays because it can only be obtained by buying the entire Office suite.
This may be a good thing if you also need other programs such as Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook, but if what you need is just a word processor, paying for Office is really not recommended.
From a business point of view, the comparison should be made between Google Apps, the Google management platform for companies and Office 365 mentioned above.
Without going into details (otherwise it would take almost a book), the most important factor at stake is the price.
Google charges only 50 Euros per year for each person who uses Google Apps.
Microsoft Office 365 starts from a higher price of about 70 Euros which goes up if you use Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other programs.
As seen in another article, G Suite offers a corporate dashboard to manage an organization or project and is a very reliable and economical solution for a small business or small office.
The suite includes the e-mail service, Google Docs applications, a Google Drive online space, a custom domain, a platform for making a website with Google Sites.
On the other hand, however, Microsoft Office 365 has relatively low costs, it is easy to configure and, if you consider a large company, it offers more solid and powerful tools whose operation is also guaranteed by the support of consultants.
To conclude, one cannot fail to consider a third solution to have the best of both worlds: LibreOffice .
Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access programs are free with LibreOffice, the best open source office suite developed by some of the creators of OpenOffice.
LibreOffice is a free traditional desktop program, ideal for replacing Microsoft Office on your computer, both for business and personal use.
With the OOO2GD extension, you can also achieve synchronization of Libre Office documents with Google Drive.
To conclude this article, perhaps too concise for such a vast topic, I turn the question to know which program you use to write documents on your computer and if you think if the time has come to replace MS Office with Google Docs or if it is still too early.
I remember that in other articles it is written:
- How to download Office 2013 for free in its trial version (Office 365 is not Office 2013 by which we mean the traditional program to be installed).
- The best online Office suites like Google Docs.
- List of alternative programs to Microsoft Office
- Download Microsoft Word for free
READ ALSO: Free alternative to Google Docs and Office 365: Open365
