Another familiar-looking office suite, Zoho
Docs is an established player on the market. This means that it's had time to
build up a following, so you'll be able to collaborate with other Zoho users
easily enough, thanks to the shared workspace area within the suite's home
page. You can also create Groups to invite friends to join and sharing files
with external, non-Zoho users is available, although you do have to pay for
this feature. This is a downside of the suite and if you're looking for an
online suite to share files with others externally, we'd argue that you're
better off with Google Drive.
Aside from its collaboration features, Zoho
Docs is revered for being one of the better stocked online suites around,
although as with Google Docs, the font options is an area needing improvement.
Some other aspects of the suite take a bit of getting used to also, with the
Review menu housing the likes of word count and thesaurus. A Share tab on the
menu of each of the applications again makes for simple, clear collaboration.
The spreadsheet application has been given
an update in recent months, throwing in a bunch of enhancements to improve an
element of the suite that was lacking a little previously. Now, filters,
conditional formatting, format cells, a Solver analysis tool for optimization
and auto-complete function are all among the feature tweaks, bringing it closer
to the best desktop suites around.
As for the overall look, Zoho Docs is a
winner on all fronts, with updates in recent times bringing it closer to its
rivals. Understanding your competition is a key part of any successful product
and Zoho offers integration with Google Drive, allowing users to create and
edit Zoho documents while working within Google Drive. There's also a plug-in
available for MS Office and free mobile options cover everything from
BlackBerry to Android devices and even iOS for the iPhone and iPad.
During testing, we felt this was a quick,
efficient and reliable suite in which we managed to carry out all our daily
tasks with the minimum of fuss. Being able to store our music, video and image
content in clear folders was another bonus.
Storage is again limited to just 1GB, which
is low in today's cloud collaboration environment, although you can pay for
more if you wish. Zoho Docs' position within a wider Office suite is another
positive, meaning that in theory you could be at your most productive all from
within the one package.
In the past, we've recommended Zoho Docs based
primarily on its wonderful word processor. Now, the spreadsheet and
presentation apps have caught up making this an even stronger overall package.
Recent updates have made noticeable improvements across the board, not least in
a uniform approach to presentation between the core three apps - something that
has not always been the case.
Accessible, feature-packed and lightning
fast in operation. Google Drive is great for collaboration, but as a pure
office suite, this is better.
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Details
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Manufacturer:
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Zoho
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Website:
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zoho.com
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Required spec:
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Internet connection, Windows XP or later
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Quality:
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8
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Value:
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8
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Overall:
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8
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OpenOffice/OxygenOffice Professional
For the uninitiated, OxygenOffice
Professional is OpenOffice with bells on. A big enhancement of OpenOffice,
while retaining the core look and feel of the suite, OxygenOffice Professional
promises, among other things, over 3,000 graphics (clip art and photos) over 90
fonts, more templates, a built-in Wikipedia search facility, enhanced help menu
and import options for Office Open XML, Works and WordPerfect Graphics.
These additional features are welcome but
ultimately they're attached to an older version of the OpenOffice Suite that
was recently taken over by Apache - after its previous guardian, Oracle,
decided to halt its development efforts. If you bypass the OxygenOffice
additions, you may feel the benefit of the forward-looking changes Apache has
made since its first release in May, and in a later August update.
We've been a fan of OpenOffice for a while
now thanks to its surprisingly strong feature set and a clarity of approach
making it an accessible product for power users and standard users alike. The
included feature set in this latest release includes improved pivot table
support, new spreadsheet functions and better graphics. The promise of improved
performance overall was, however, not borne out during testing, with a few
errors in importing and formatting. Encountering the occasional freeze while
trying to save our documents was a worry, although the recovery process is
quick, with our documents brought back to life with no errors.
It's hard to recommend this given the
glitches and performance hangs
File format support is another area in
which this first release under new management suffers. While every other
package on test supports Office 2007 and 2010 files, OpenOffice has failed to
keep up with the times. Other missing features such as an automatic word
counter in the status bar of the word processor point towards a release that is
adequate rather than outstanding.
OpenOffice is quick at going about its
business, however, allowing for a genuinely intuitive and productive working
process. The inclusion of database and drawing packages might seem a little
outmoded in today's working environments, but we're hardly going to bemoan
their inclusion for legacy reasons.
Since Oracle transferred the suite to
Apache, it seems that the project has stalled somewhat. It would be unfair to
say that this doesn't compete with MS Office, because it offers a rich feature
set and for standard users, OpenOffice will help you to achieve almost anything
you would want from a home office package. It doesn't pack in 100% of the
features of its more expensive competition, naturally, but it comes close all
the same, particularly with the OxygenOffice extension.
However, it's hard to recommend this given
the glitches and performance hangs we experienced from time to time during
testing. It's also, dare we say it, a little dull and uninspired in a market
cluttered with rivals looking to bring something else to the party. Also, while
it can handle 2007/2010 MS Office files, an inexplicable decision to not export
to these formats suggests that the package is not being updated as we'd like.
The lack of updates to the portable version of this in PortableApps further
points to that fact and perhaps the developer needs to show this a bit more
love?
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Details
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Manufacturer:
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Apache Software Foundation
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Website
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www.openoffice.org
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Required spec
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256MG RAM, 650MB HDD space, Windows XP or
later
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Quality:
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6
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Value:
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7
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Overall:
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6
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