Google spreads sheets and processes words

On invitation -- you can still register here -- we steered our flaming fox to http://spreadsheet.google.com and signed-in.

The first time you see Google Spreadsheets the word "minimalist" comes to mind. It is not a bad thing. Google's version of "minimalist" is instantly accessible and very easy to use.

The grid occupies most of the screen. At the top there is bar with three tabs and a bunch of buttons; cut, copy, paste, undo and redo. It may not look as cool as the Ribbon you get in Office 2007 but it is works just fine.

Scrolling up and down did feel a little laggy but entering data into cells was instantaneous. Thank God for Ajax. Undo and redo worked across multiple sheets and everything was automatically saved every so often.

First we tried to open an existing XLS file. No good, we didn't realize that our file was over 2mb in size. Too big for Google Spreadsheets. Fine. Tried another, smaller file. Nope, nothing happened. Why? We selected an XLSX file (the new format used by Excel 2007). This format is not yet supported.

Finally, third time lucky, we found a small XLS file and opened it up. Our formulas and formatting came out OK. Except, strangely, the grid in the current sheet became very small (5 x 10). No matter what we tried we couldn't make it larger. Google, that's a bug in our books.

Even though Google Spreadsheet is not the most sophisticated online spreadsheet around it still, supposedly, has over 200 different functions. It felt a lot less than 200 to us though.

Sadly and, perhaps, surprisingly sorting was very limited. The amount of formulas was decent but it was nowhere near Excel's crazy abundance. Formatting options were very basic. There was no way to import images, create charts, tables, check spelling or search. If you use macros you can forget about them.

One thing we liked, though, was the spreadsheet sharing option. You can invite people to edit or just to view your spreadsheet.

As it stands Google Spreadsheets is not an Excel killer. In fact, in its current state it is not even going to put a dent in Excel's market share. Just wait for Office 2007 to come out. You'll see. But as a free product it is a nice supplement.

Thanks to a generous reader, cheers Nandro, we also scored an invitation for Writely. Google's to-be-released online word processor.

Truth be told, although Word has nothing to fear, Writely is impressive. In fact, it has a number of cool features that Word doesn't have.

Our first impressions were positive. Writely was very responsive. There was absolutely no lag when we scrolled or typed. Formatting, making text bold or changing fonts, was instantaneous.

A few things we liked included: the ability to save as DOC or PDF, create an RSS feed from the document, insert tables and images. Writely saved our document at certain times and although everything froze while it happened it was not a big nuisance.

Online collaboration is possible with Writely. You can invite people to view and edit documents.

Writely can also publish your document online and give you a url to share with others. And if you have a blog, Writely can upload your document to it.

One feature that we really liked was "Revisions". Not only can you review prior versions of the document, Writely can compare any two of them and show you the difference. Why doesn't Word have something as easy, shurely nobody uses "Track Changes".

We encountered one little problem when we tried to paste some stuff from Word. For some reason spacing between lines wasn't kept properly. It could have been because we used Word 2007. Also positioning images around text was a bit of a bother.

Writely looks promising. Let's hope it doesn't stay in Beta perpetually so that anyone can try it. ?