Thing 19: Google Docs

I have been a fan of Google Docs for years. I first stumbled upon Google Docs when I was visiting my father-in-law (who only has Microsoft Works). I was needing to write a paper for a class and knew I wouldn't finish it before I left. So, I had two problems: 1. How to get it home with me, and 2. how to make it open in Word. I know, I could have saved it as .rtf, but I was afraid I would lose some of my formatting. With Google Docs I could create it, save it to the web, retrieve it from home, and then download it as a Word file when I was ready.

I have also used Google Docs for presentations and spreadsheets. I really like the portability of Google Docs and I love that it can open many types of files and convert them to other file types, especially .pdf.

Most recently, I used Google Docs to collaborate with a partner on a project. We were able to work on the document at the same time and even leave notes for each other at the bottom of the page. We typed in different colors so it would be easy to see what the other had done and then changed the color to black after we were finished editing.

The only problem that we found with Google Docs was when we worked at the same time, some of our changes were not saved. I would type a sentence and my partner would hit save before I finished and the sentence I typed was only half there. Not a major problem, though. We worked with it and wrote a great paper together.