How Does Office Web Apps Compare to Google Docs?
Microsoft rolled out its free Office Web Apps earlier this week, introducing a free, basic Office suite for the web. How does it compare to Google’s own Docs offering? Here’s a rundown of each webapp’s strengths and weaknesses.
Where Office Web Apps Excels
Yeah, yeah, that’s a pretty bad pun. But it’s actually the first descriptor that came to mind.
Microsoft Office Compatibility
As you’d probably expect, when it comes to uploading a complex Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document to the web, and having it look the same there as it does on your desktop, Web Apps takes the cake. Until our little test, though, we didn’t realize by just how much.
We uploaded a few different Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files to both suites, and relied on our past experience with Docs. To show you the difference, here’s a heavily formatted corporate-style newsletter-pictures, sub-headings, margins, you name it. We opened it in TextEdit on a Mac, and placed it next to both Google Docs and Office Web Apps.
First, here’s how it looks in Google Docs, compared to the original in TextEdit. (Click the image for a larger view):
Source of image (LifeHacker)
