Monday, 21 August 2006

Google Re-opens Writely to Public

Google has re-opened Writely beta online word processing application to the public again after it closed public sign-ups. Google acquired Writely from Upstartle in March and has kept it closed to the public to transition it to Google’s servers.

Writely features document authoring and collaboration capabilities within a Web browser using AJAX. It allows users to invite others to co-edit documents and see the new additions subtraction live in Windows with a slight time delay. It also saves a document every 10 seconds. While working on the documents users would also see who are working on their documents in the list at the bottom of the screen. Writely keeps a revision history and users can revert back to its previous version.

After editing, the document can be downloaded in .doc, .rtf, or .odt formats, as a PDF file, or as a self-contained zipped HTML files with all images included.

The new released when combined with Google Spreadsheets, the Google Calendar, Google Talk, and Gmail more or less complete Microsoft Office suite.