Going Offline With Your Online Documents

Lately, I’ve been reading about some new ways to work with your documents offline and then sync them back to an online service. While initially this seems to go against the idea of an online office suite, working offline in this way has some benefits. For one thing, the internet is not everywhere yet. Although wi-fi is now being slowly introduced on some airlines, many business travelers still need to be able to work on their files on the go and this still is not an option on all airlines yet. Then there are other jobs that take people “into the field” that also often involve working on documents when no internet connection is present. Without offline capabilities, a lot of work could come to a stop.

Another useful aspect of working offline is that you have the ability to work in your traditional “offline” office software, which is, at the moment, much more robust and feature-rich than its online counterparts. Suites like Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, StarOffice, and others let you to do a lot more than a free online service like Google Docs, though this may change in the future.

Until recently, the choice between web office suites and offline suites was an “either/or” choice; however, now, there are options available that give you the best of both worlds. Here are a few services and tools I’ve found, some of which are now just on the verge of launching, that promise to bring you the new “blended office suite”:

• DocSyncer: DocSyncer is a yet-to-launch service that syncs up your Microsoft Office documents with Google Docs. The screenshots look nice, so it’s worth signing up to see how it works out.
• OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs: This OpenOffice extension exports & imports your docs in and out of Google Docs. With this, you can upload OpenDocument Text (.odt), StarOffice (.sxw), Microsoft Word (.doc, but not MS XML), Rich Text (.rtf), OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods), Microsoft Excel (.xls), Comma Separated Value (.csv), & Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pps) files into and out of Open Office.
• Microsoft Office Live: (Private beta) Your documents are online in the Microsoft Office Live workspace, but when you go to edit them, the editing is done in Microsoft Office software, which you have on your PC. Those edits are immediately reflected in the version on Office Live. Documents can also be shared with others who can comment on them or edit them and the different versions are tracked in the Office Live workspace.
• Zoho Writer + Google Gears: Zoho Writer lets you click a button to go offline. The first time you use the feature, you will be prompted to install Google Gears. After installation & a browser restart, click “Go Offline” again to make your documents (15 docs by default) available offline. When you’re offline, you can go to http://writer.zoho.com/offline to access and edit your files.
• ThinkFree, Premium Version: ThinkFree just announced that they will begin offering a premium version of their online office suite that offer users the ability to work offline. The premium edition will be $5-10/month and the free version will be rebranded as ThinkFree Online Basic Edition and supported by advertising. The private beta will begin in January, 2008 and the wider beta in February.

Do you need to work offline? If so, what software or services are you going use?

Tags: Google, Microsoft, Online Storage, Productivity, Useful, Web 2.0, Web Apps