Despite the growing popularity of online software services like Zoho, many people still prefer desktop solutions for a number of reasons. One reason for this is simply habit – if you’re accustomed to using MS Office or some other office suite, then it can take some time and patience to get used to any other application, whether it’s online or not. However, if that application is online, even more adjustment may be called for because the documents and files now being created are stored somewhere “out there” in the cloud by default, rather than on your desktop.
If this is something you’re worried about, Zoho has actually come up with a nice solution – the free Zoho Plugin for Microsoft Office. With this plugin installed, you can pass back and forth almost seamlessly between Microsoft Office and Zoho when creating documents and spreadsheets. This way, you can work offline in Word and Excel and transfer your data to Zoho Writer or Sheet with a single click of a button. Likewise, you can use the plugin to open documents and spreadsheets stored in Zoho as Word or Excel files without having to manually walk through the import/export process. For example, with the plugin installed, you can open a Zoho spreadsheet with Microsoft Excel, make any changes you like, and save again as the same Zoho spreadsheet – the entire process just as quick and easy as editing a file that sits on your local hard drive.
In the next article of this series, we’ll take a closer look at Zoho’s collection of office applications. In particular, we’ll review Writer, Sheet, and Show – Zoho’s word processor, spreadsheet application, and presentation creator – and see how they perform as stand-alone products.
