Online word processors offer a multitude of options computer-based word processors cannot. If you want to access your documents from different computers, for example, or collaborate on a file via the internet, a web-based word processor is useful tool. Unlike your computer-based word processor, you can write, edit, access, and share (and often a whole lot more!) your documents from any computer in the world with internet access.

Here are five online word processors worth checking out.

Buzzword

Buzzword is a free web-based word processor brought to you by the Adobe team. It supports plain text, rich text, Microsoft Word, and Word XML files. You can also export documents to Adobe PDF, Open Office, and HTML. In addition to the standard word processing options, Buzzword allows you to add comments, images, lists, and roles. It comes with 5GB of storage space.

Visit Buzzword for more information.

Google Documents

Google Documents comes with plenty of options and advanced features. Add a table of contents to your document, use their built in dictionary, and even save your file as a PDF or Power Point presentation.

Documents have a maximum size of 500K, however, which is the smallest storage feature of the processors featured here.

Find out more about Google Documents.

Thinkfree

With a 1 GB storage capacity, this free web-based word processor is “designed to look, feel, and behave like Microsoft Office, eliminating the learning curve.” Your files are stored on a secure server for easy access, and you can run Thinkfree on Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Check out Thinkfree.

Writeboard

Writeboard uses a slightly different process to store your documents. You can create as many “writeboards” as you wish, for free, with no size limits, but if you want to keep them all in one place, you’ll need to sign up for their Backpack organizer. Backpack was named a “Best of the Web 2005″ tool by Business Week, but it does come with a fee. The smallest plan is only $7, but it doesn’t offer much in the way of storage space.

Writeboard requires Internet Explorer 6.x, Safari, or Firefox.

Visit the Writeboard website.

Zoho Writer

Zoho Writer offers unlimited storage space until they are out of Beta phase. After that, you will get 1 GB with your free account. Their website lists the following functions, which are quite impressive for a web-based word processor.

• Create, format documents online with a powerful WYSIWYG editor
• Access, edit, and share (by email address) documents online from anywhere with whomever you choose
• Periodic auto-saving of your documents to prevent data loss
• Export documents to your desktop as Word, SXW, PDF, ODT, RTF, TXT and HTML
• Import documents in Word, SXW, ODT, RTF, JPG, GIF, PNG, HTML and TXT formats.
• Post your documents to your blogs (Blogger, LiveJournal, Typepad, WordPress etc) from within Zoho Writer
• View, edit and save documents available on the web directly (no need to download documents to your desktop & then open them using desktop-based software)
• View your documents’ revision history, compare versions and rollback to any version of your choice
• Publish your documents online for public view
• Tag your documents for easy access
• Lock your documents while working in shared mode

Visit Zoho Writer’s website.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 12:38 pm and is filed under Computers, Info. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.