Online Office Suites: The Winner Is Clear

The downside: loading Write or Calc can take up to a minute, and saving a small file takes about 10 seconds. The upside: ThinkFree hides your browser's menu bar, so when you use familiar keyboard shortcuts (such as Alt+F, O for File/Open), you are operating within the ThinkFree interface, not your browser. Other similarities to Microsoft Office are downright eerie -- the charting wizard in ThinkFree Calc looks just like Excel's and supports all of Excel's chart types.

Creating charts is quick and easy in ThinkFree Calc. (Click image to see larger view.)

ThinkFree isn't 100% compatible with Office. For example, you can't create a PivotTable, and conditional formatting -- in which the background color of a cell varies by its value using settings you provide -- is not supported in Calc, though it did properly handle array formulas (both on existing worksheets we imported and on those created within Calc itself). To its credit, Calc opened the charts we created in Excel accurately and quickly; however, "template" and "macro" are concepts ThinkFree Write and Calc applications don't understand.

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

The spreadsheet module suffered none of the lag time of Zoho Sheet. It imported a test worksheet (with 330 rows and 70 columns filled with text) in under two seconds, recalculations were speedy, and moving about from cell to cell was responsive. In fact, if we didn't know better, we'd have sworn we were working with native Excel on a slightly underpowered system.

In promoting Office 2007, Microsoft has talked a lot about helping users get the most out of features already in Office. ThinkFree's simple menus, fast response and wide range of features compatible with Office applications make it a good choice if you're looking for an Office work-alike that doesn't have all the high-end features you probably aren't using anyway. The suite also comes with a presentation module for creating PowerPoint-compatible files, an application we did not test.

To share a file, you pick the mail client for sending the invitation -- ThinkFree Mail, Google's Gmail, Hotmail or a local e-mail client such as Outlook or Thunderbird -- and specify if the invitee can edit the document or just view and download it. It worked smoothly. An extension to ThinkFree allows you to view documents on other Web sites by simply right-clicking a link to a document, then choosing the appropriate ThinkFree application (it supports files with .doc, .rtf, .txt, .xls, .csv, .ppt, and .pps extensions).

ThinkFree's speed is due, in part, to a mix of technologies: Asynchronous JavaScript and XML for simple functionality and faster access, and Java for more complex functions and deeper Microsoft compatibility. The suite will soon be updated to use Flash to display presentations with animation.

Currently, ThinkFree hosts only a free version. By April 2007, the company will make available a Premium Edition that will offer offline and online access, synchronization between offline and online files, bulk archiving of documents in your online folders and priority tech support (with 24-hour response). Following the release of the Premium Edition will be a version for small and midsize businesses that will add group and user access.

ThinkFree worked without a hitch. It was responsive, worked perfectly saving new documents and importing those created in Office 2003. Its surprisingly well-rounded feature compatibility makes it the suite of choice for online work.