Google Docs is great for storing your files in the cloud and interactively collaborating with others, but you’ve got to admit that using the browser-based editor is akin to working in Notepad. No problem — as you can see in the video, now you can use OfficSync to work on Google doc files in Microsoft Office.
And the idea of OffiSync is not as crazy as it sounds. It adds a new toolbar to Office 2003 or Office 2007 (a ribbon in the latter, naturally) that lets you open Google files from the cloud or save your local files to your Google Docs folder.
And the blending of Office and Google gives you all sorts of cool conveniences. I love the Collaborate feature, for example, that lets you add collaborators and send a notification e-mail right from Office. You can switch from offline to online editing with one click (online editing opens the current document in a browser window), and Copy URL lets you grab the URL to your online doc and paste it anywhere.
I’d call this mash-up the coolest thing I’ve seen since J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek film, but the marriage of the offline and online worlds are not perfect. Google Docs isn’t very good at handling special Office features, for example. Insert WordArt in your document, and Google turns it into a static image (and a pretty ugly one at that).
Nonetheless, OffiSync has awesome potential; give this version a try (it’s free), and let’s hope for some cool updates soon.
