OffiSync – Google Docs Meets Microsoft Office
January 6, 2010OffiSync is an add-on for Microsoft Office, which allows you to open and save Google Docs through the Microsoft Office applications. Therefore, bringing together the excellent user interface of Microsoft Office, and the functionality of Google Docs, allowing documents to be shared between multiple users across different computers.
The add-on adds another tab to the Office ribbon, offering options to open, save, collaborate and share documents, and a quick access to a Google search for images and web searches.
Once logged in, opening a file brings up a dialogue window allowing you to choose documents that you’ve already stored in your Google Docs account. Whilst the majority of the features are free, there’s a premium option that allows you to use Google Sites.
After a brief moment whilst the file is downloaded, you’re free to edit the document as you would any other. Unfortunately, there’s no support to automatically periodically save the file online, which is one of the advantages of editing documents within Google Docs. It also takes a moment or two to reupload the file, and occasionally it warns you that you could overwrite any modifications which may have been made by other collaborators.
If you’re used to the print view in Word, then it is rather irritating for the view to revert to ‘draft’’ view each time you download a document. However, this is a personal preference, and isn’t a big deal. Nonetheless, due to the limitations of the free version of OffiSync and Google Docs, any special formatting which has been applied using Word can sometimes be lost when uploaded to Google Docs. Therefore, I tend to draft out documents over time, before I make final revisions locally before printing from Word.
The service allows you to save documents locally, as well as online. Whilst this can be an effective method of backup, it doesn’t simultaneously save online and locally. Therefore, once saved locally, saving from then on is local only until specified otherwise. This could potentially lead to online documents not being as up to date as they should, for instance if the user forgot to resave the document online. This is a rather pedantic point, as Google Docs is generally reliable.
I’ve only tried out the Microsoft Word components of the application, there are also options to do the same in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint. I definitely recommend OffiSync if you like the functionality of Google Docs, but prefer the interface of Microsoft Office.
Chris that – looks really interesting – I’ll check it out myself (as someone who uses Google Docs and MS Office quite a lot – it’d be nice to use them together…) when I’m at home…
I’ll report back on how I find it with Excel…
I forgot to mention that Office 2010 will likely include something like this to tie in with it’s own online office suite. However, since OffiSync isn’t available for the beta of Office 2010, I haven’t really checked out the features.
Let us know how you get on with Excel.
Office 2010′s sync will likely only connect to Microsofts own LiveOffice…
OffiSync’s word component seems to work well for the couple of spreadsheets I have on the Google Docs service – I’ve not tried anything complicated with it – but for what I’ve used it for, it’s great.
I have seen this before and it looks like an excellent product. Useless to me without an Apple version – for Microsoft Office on Mac – any plans to add this compatibility?
@Tom Microsoft have supported add-ins in Office for some time; althoughthis is the first third party one I’ve used before. As long as they haven’t removed the ability to create add-ins for Office 2010, I think OffiSync would be able to release an update if they wanted to. However, productivity suites, like operating systems, have reached a point that such releases are more/less subtle refinements than major leaps forward.
@Andrew Shame it doesn’t work with Mac. I’m not sure whether they have any plans to do so or not, but it may be worth dropping them a line on their feedback form: http://www.offisync.com/feedback.html
Good Day,
OffiSync will run with the Office 2010 Beta. If you have troubles, let us know.
Plans for Mac are in the works.
Premium version lets you connect to Google Sites, which preserves Office document formats.
Coming soon … format preservation with Docs and real-time collaboration, both will require OffiSync Premium.
10% savings at http://buyoffisync.com with coupon code LAUNCH10 at checkout.
Allen
OffiSync Distributor and Reseller