Zoho Writer Web-based word processing site

By Chris Harris -- School Library Journal, 8/1/2006

Zohowriter.com

When is a wiki more than a wiki? When it incorporates a word-processing interface. Don’t get me wrong, standard wiki models like the best practices tool Library Success are great tools. But the technology of a wiki can overwhelm the collaborative benefits in a classroom setting. That is where online word processors shine.

I have become hooked on Zoho Writer, a Web-based word processor. Similar tools include Writely and ThinkFree. Featuring many of the standard functions you would expect from a desktop-installed software suite, these Web applications enable you to select fonts, colors, and text styles or insert bullets, tables, and images. Users can auto-save their work, find and replace content, and even spell-check. You can also save documents as templates—for example, a lesson plan template that is preformatted with your basic information.

So how does a tool like Zoho Writer differ from OpenOffice? For one, it’s free. The real distinctions start to show up, however, after you have finished typing. Save a document with your desktop word processor and there it sits. Sure, you can move it around using the Sneaker-Net on a USB flash drive or e-mail the document, but there are serious limitations. Save a document using Zoho Writer and it is available wherever you can access the Web. You can share the document with read-only or read/write permissions with a simple e-mail invitation. Or you can make the document public and allow anyone to read what you have written. The options don’t stop there; you can also automatically post it to a blog, export it to a PDF file, or even save it in the standard DOC format for use in Microsoft Word.

So the next time you are collaborating on a project with a teacher down the hall, a librarian across the district, or a national committee, why not try Zoho Writer? Or if your school discourages students from bringing documents from home to school on storage drives, why not introduce students to an online word processor? Then their work would be available online, along with all of the features of a desktop word processor—including those all important red underlines for misspelled words that appear with a simple click of the spell-check button.