Online Office Suites: The Winner Is Clear

Then you run out of word-processing power. AjaxWrite offers no support for columns, bookmarks and tables (we found that we could add a bordered text area, but not a true table) or even the simple ability to use a "paste special" function -- that is, paste text but not the text's formatting.

AjaxWrite's user interface stands apart (and not in a good way) from every other word processor you've seen. Somewhat disconcerting, for example, is how a new document appears only as a small white page area bounded by a thin black border, which expands as you type, instead of a traditional full-screen work area. Though it sports menus, they don't work with the familiar Alt + letter key shortcuts. Worse, there's no help system; you're directed to the Ajax forums, which is a poor substitute for finding out basic information.

Ajax13 requires Firefox 1.5 or higher. The word processor supports Word, Open Office, RTF, text and PDF output formats, but it kept crashing with Java input/output errors when we tried to save our files. In our initial round of testing, we were unable to open or save our work as a Word or Excel file, despite trying the programs on several systems and with Firefox 1.5 and 2.0. Whenever we tried to open a file on our hard drive, we simply received "Please Wait" messages, but our files never opened.

Review: Four Free Online Office Suites Ajax13 Google Docs & Spreadsheets ThinkFree Office Online Zoho Office Suite

After reading the Ajax13 forums, it appears our difficulties were due to problems with the company's servers, which lasted for a full week of testing. Testing after the holidays proved more successful -- file loading was still extremely slow, but at least simple files loaded.

Unlike the other applications in the roundup, Ajax13 can't save files to an online server, thus negating one of the attractive benefits of online suites -- anywhere, anytime document editing. It also means that you can't easily share your files, as with the other products. Worse, ajaxXLS, the spreadsheet module, is merely a viewer. You can't create a spreadsheet from scratch or modify an existing file. Given that Microsoft already provides a free Excel viewer, we just don't see the point of ajaxXLS.

There's so little of value in Ajax13 that we can only say it simply isn't worth the bother.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets

When Google Docs & Spreadsheets first appeared on the scene in October of 2006, we took a close look. Since our initial full review, we have found no significant changes.

There is much to like about this application pair. Editing is simple and straightforward. Each application sports a revision tab that helps you compare different versions of your word processing document or spreadsheet. Furthermore, it's the only one of the four word processors in our roundup that allows you to edit text as either a word processing document or as HTML and neatly switch between the two. While Zoho and ThinkFree can save your document as HTML, only Google Docs lets you actually create an HTML document and edit the tags from the get-go.

In both apps, inviting others to edit or view your work is straightforward and easy, and we found no problems with any of the 100 Spreadsheets functions we tested. Both modules are very responsive; with the exception of File Open and File Save commands, there's little evidence you're working live online.