Zoho Writer (Exercise #18)

I really like that you don't have to worry about different software versions or file types when you e-mail your documents to someone or change the computer you are using. I remember being a student and then later being an instructor that this was always problem when you had to e-mail a paper or upload it to a course management system like Blackboard. I also like the collaborative aspect of it. I know I've worked with different colleagues on work documents, and it's like we write our different parts, then stick them all together, and start making changes. Usually one person ends up editing it. These kinds of tools could really let people be more involved with the editing process.

The Zoho program is fairly easy to use. I like that you can import documents. I also like some of the extra features that you don't get in Microsoft Word, like the strikethrough option. Still I'm so used to using Microsoft Word now that I was struggling to find some things. I couldn't figure out how to do a page break or add things like headers and footers. I understand that page breaks don't matter if it's going to be a web document, but if you plan to print it out, page breaks can matter. It's possible those things were there, and I just couldn't find them. I hate that Microsoft Word help guy that comes up from time to time, but I do like having an easy to find help box, so I can get those kinds of formatting questions answered quickly.

I played around with e-mailing it to myself. It was amazing how easy it was to e-mail a pdf version of it to myself. It messed up some of my formatting a little bit, but it was still impressive. I liked how easy it was to share.

I'm going to try to post the document I created with Zoho Writer. It's a handout I did for a literature class about The Hipster. I've also made the document public.