Options to replace Google Documents

February 14, 2012 1:30 PM

Options to replace Google Documents?

I have been using google for years, but their recent up-date has made their site unusable.

In gmail, my eyes are not good enough to discern "read" mail and "new" mail. There is apparently no way to increase the contrast.

But my big issue is google documents. The up-dated version is slow, clunky and crashes. The spread-sheet is completely unusable. The word document is almost as bad. I can't take it anymore. I am done with google.

I need to have some sort of simple cloud computing, where I can access a few documents and a few spread-sheets for various computers. Now that google has gone to pot, what can I do?

Is there any other free cloud documents, similar to google documents out there?

posted by Flood to computers & internet (9 answers total)

Will the computers all have similar software? Can you just store files on dropbox and deal with it that way?

(Also, have you tried messing around with different gmail themes? Some have much more difference between new and read mail)
posted by brainmouse at 1:33 PM on February 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

(Actually, I just went into themes, one of them is explicitly called "high contrast")
posted by brainmouse at 1:35 PM on February 14, 2012

Zoho works for me.
posted by crush-onastick at 1:35 PM on February 14, 2012

google documents... is slow, clunky and crashes. The spread-sheet is completely unusable. The word document is almost as bad

It sounds like your computer or your Internet is broken. Switching to another cloud service won't solve this. I recommend addressing the problem, not the symptoms.
posted by kindall at 1:37 PM on February 14, 2012 [5 favorites]

I've been exploring the exact same topic lately and I came across this website yesterday. I have used Zoho in the past for other applications, and I love it. The reviewer's positive remarks about it as a good alternative are making that the appealing choice for me right now.
posted by chatelaine at 1:40 PM on February 14, 2012

The computers will not have the same software. These are customer computers, which I can sometimes use to access information while in the field at their homes.

And, I do not think it is my computer. It occurs on different computers, when I temporarily click back to the old style google documents it works, and there are complaints similar to mine all over the internet.
posted by Flood at 1:44 PM on February 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

If you have purchased a recent edition of Office, you can use Microsoft's SkyDrive, which has cloud versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint. It's pretty cool, and SkyDrive itself is an awesome storage solution - it's really quick to upload files, and it offers a lot of storage.

On the other hand, my work uses Google Apps, and I love it. I have not experienced any problems with Google Docs like you have described.
posted by KokuRyu at 1:48 PM on February 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

What browser are you using? Is it up to date? I use Google Docs all day and it doesn't feel slow or clunky, so I agree with the advice that you may have issue with other cloud services as well until you solve the underlying problem. I use Chrome.
posted by beyond_pink at 2:06 PM on February 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've transitioned quite easily to Evernote. Combined with DropBox, its a lethal combo for docs on the go.
posted by cacofonie at 7:28 PM on February 14, 2012