Writely is awesome. There are so many great things that are built right into it that can save you time, reduce your headaches, and increase your productivity. Here are 6 things that immediately caught my attention.
1. Hello GDdrive:
A few weeks ago I wrote about the potential release of Gdrive, an online storage service that Google is rumored to be rolling out soon. Writely, in conjuntion with Google Spreadsheets and Gmail, basically makes this a reality. Here is why. You can upload your word processing documents into Writely and edit or save them online. You can download them back from Writely to any desktop computer. That means that you can use Google as a back-up for your existing docs, and use it to create and store your future work. GMail provides an additional repositiory for your documents and files as attachments to your emails. You can use the Firefox extension Gspace to make this process seamless. Hello GDrive! Now, I know when the “official” Gdrive rolls out there will provbably be much more to it, as it will likely offer a centralized repository for everything. Still, this is a huge step in toward making GDrive a reality.
2. Collaborate:
Writely allows you to work collaboratively on documents. You simply invite your collaborators to edit the document, and they can then access the file via the web. Writley will keep track of changes and versions, reducing many of the hassles of group work. I am looking forward to trying this feature out on my next group project for school. These projects are always cumbersome, with people editing edits, versions getitng confused, and work being duplicated.
3. Built In RSS:
Writely offer the ability to attach an RSS feed to a document so that as changes are made, you and other group members, will be notified automatically. This is brilliant, and will eliminate the unwanted surprises that can come with group editing.
4. Publish to the Web:
This post was written in Writely and then published directly to Voice. A great tool for bloggers.
5. Multiple file formats:
Writely offers the ability to save your documents in a variety of file formats. You can choose from HTML, PDF, RTF, Word Document, or Open Office Document, and then choose to save it online or to your desktop. This is a great feature, in that you can move documents from one format to another, and one place to another with ease.
6. Tagging:
Like Gmail, Writely offers the ability to “tag” documents. This makes it easy to organize documents by category, by topic, by importance, or by context. It is labeling. You can also use stars to indicate that a document is of special importance. A great feature that results in better organization and easy retrieval of stored files.
* Bonus Reason:
It is Free!