I recently started using Zoho after remembering it mentioned in a prior review by Hannah on Thinkfree. I apologize for the long post, but I’m very excited about this.

It is an online suite of productivity tools including word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, wiki, notebook, planner, chat, virtual meeting, and creator (a tool I can’t very well explain–it is a mechanism to create web forms, scripts, and all manner of techy things). Some of the modules are also able to be used offline and then updated when you next connect. This is a feature not available in most web app productivity tools.

So far I have mostly used the word processor (writer) and presentation (show) modules. The word processor has many more features than Google Docs and I enjoy the interface more. There is a neat tool called “layer” that is similar to the text box in Word and draggable anywhere within the document so you can “pile” content for advanced document creation. Documents may be shared and discussed with others, and the portal for this is an expandable pane to the right of your document. This seems like a very natural flow for collaborative work.

Today I used Show to produce a short presentation for our library in-service and was very pleased with the results. It is simple to embed HTML snippets (aka, toss in images from Flickr, etc.) which is very handy. The presentation automatically adjusts to the detected screen size or can be manually sized to fit whatever portion of your screen that you’d like.

The piece that may become my favorite feature is Notebook. It looks like a blank sheet of paper with options to add audio, video, and all sorts of objects, as well as text, and even use your mouse to draw and sketch. All elements appear together on the page, as if you were taking notes in a meeting or class. I would liken it to a dummied down web app version of Microsoft OneNote, minus the handwriting recognition piece. I’ve been looking for months for software or web apps that do this.

For those who want to see the Thriller recreation:

Give it a run and see how you like it. The Thinkfree word processor does seem to be even more advanced, so may be a better fit for those of you looking for a webable Word. However, Zoho has just enough fluff to make me happy, along with the other bundled modules.


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