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Word Processor Comparison Article

snezaale — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:41:10 CDT

Abstract:

This study reviews four different word processors: MS Word, Google Docs, Zoho Writer, and Wiki Program, then compares all four based on their ability to import/export documents, ease of use, their formatting and word count options, grammar and spell checking, and finally their cost. The goal of this study is to define which Word Processor improves the quality of work being done the most. More effective uses of word processing as an instructional tool might include adapting instruction to software strengths and adding metacognitive prompts to the writing program.

Introduction:

Word processing is a bridge that provides lifelong educational benefits to its users in a form of rich and smooth flowing text. A word processor, previously known as “document preparation system” is a computer application used for the creation of any sort of printable documents. These Word Processors are divided in two types; Web based such as Google Doc, Zoho Writer and Wiki Program; and non-web based like MS Word. The web based processors are fairly new on the market compared to MS Word, however these companies has taken steps to broaden the reach of its Web-based features in order to compete with Microsoft Corp. Word processors have numerous purposes of employment in the business field, as well as for the educational and personal use. In the business world, companies use some of the mentioned processors to write memos, letterheads, and reference documents.

History:

Word Perfect, XyWrite, Microsoft Word (along with personal computers) competed in the 1980s against dedicated word process machintes. Early word processing software required users to memorize semi-mnemonic key combinations rather than pressing keys labeled "copy" or "bold." Development of higher-resolution monitors allowed these programs to provide limited typographical features such as bold and italics, indentation, justification and margins. The mid-to-late 1980s saw the spread of laser printers, a "typographic" approach to word processing, and of true WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) bitmap displays with multiple fonts, Postscript, and graphical user interfaces. Standalone word processors tried to adapt by getting smaller and replacing their CRTs with small character-oriented LCD displays. Some models also had computer-like features such as floppy disk drives and the ability to output to an external printer. They also got a name change, now being called "electronic typewriters" and typically occupying a lower end of the market, selling for under $200 USD. Soon after the introduction of MacWrite and Microsoft Word, the dedicated word processors became museum pieces.

Body:
MS Word is a program widely used by users around the globe. It has various formatting choices that user can select in order to achieve wanted document design. MS Word 2003/2007 had the biggest variaty of options to format, edit and insert different applications. In other words, MS office in general is still a more complete program. The only disadvantage of MS Word would be the amount of work and time a group has to put in to save documents then e-mail them to all other group members. However, once you purchase the MS Office program, it is available on a laptop or computer even if there is no wireless connection or if the internet gets disconnected. As of now, MS Word remains the most widely used program opposed to the online programs because it is cheaper and almost available at all times. Some of MS Word formating commands were choosing font, font style, size and color, as well as bullets and numbering, borders and shading, document themes, formatting of selected text are some of the choices offered by Word.
Zoho writer formatting palette offers a decent array of choices. It has more than 15 font selections in addition to icons for special characters and emotions. Basically, offered selections are very similar to those in Word, and it is easy to find them. However, there is a difference between Zoho and Word. Regardless of the license cost, Word is still used widely. That is because Word does not require internet connection, which is not situation with the Zoho. However, if one wants to use Zoho, he/she will need decent internet connection. On the other hand, Zoho frequently offers updates, and one of the recent offerings was offline editing capabilities. That means that users are able to view and edit documents offline, but they need to have Google Gears plug-in installed on their browser. So, one may choose to install plug-in and use Zoho, or to stick to Word.
As a free program, Google Docs could be considered as a good substitute for MS Word. Basically, Google Docs is an elementary word processor, which includes font control, seven text sizes, highlighting, lists (using numbers or one of three bullet styles), indents and outdents, and alignment (left, center, right). One can choose from among three heading styles; single, 1.5, double, and triple line spacing; and superscript, subscript, and strikeout properties. In comparison with Word, Google Docs is an online program, which requires a good internet connection.
Wiki program has only several formatting features that other programs have, such as font style, orientation, bullets and numbering and they are limited (such as number of different fonts, colors, etc.) in comparison to other programs. It also requires decent internet connection.

Grammar, spell checking and word count optionsMS Word has very good grammar and spell checking and they work simultaneously. When the dictionary recognizes a word as misspelled, the word is underlined with a wavy red line. One can correct misspelled text through the Quick menu or through a dialog box. We can also turn this feature off, and Spell Check will not run as we work on our document. The feature can be easily activated. The situation is the same with Grammar checking. Word counting can be easily found under the Tools option. Zoho writer offers spell checking option where questionable words are highlighted. By clicking the flagged word, we can choose suggested alternate spellings. Unfortunately, there is no grammar checking. Whenever we save a document, the word count is shown at the bottom right corner. It shows number of words and characters. Google Docs spell checker highlights errors in yellow; right-click can be used for previewing the suggested spellings. There is also no grammar checking. Word count option is located in the File drop-down menu. It counts words, characters (no spaces), characters (with spaces), paragraphs, sentences and pages. Wiki program also has a spell checking option. Spelling errors are highlighted and by clicking on the suggested word, one can easily change it. There is no grammar checking option. Classic word counter is also missing, but there is a “change tracking” option, which means that program tracks the count of the added and deleted words.

Importing & Exporting
MS Word: was more practical, due to our familiarity and experience with the program, to import/export HTML type files pictures and excel spreadsheets, compared to the other three sites which were online documents.
Zoho: the easiest of all four to import URL format by clicking on "import" then you can import a document or a URL in different file types such as html, doc, sxw (open office), odt, rtf, jpg, gif, png and text files. Also you can send Word / HTML document to your account by emailing them as an attachment to :
e6gA3Agr862WJ9A@docs.zohowriter.com . Wiki (wetpaint) offered the option of bookmarking the document created on Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon using a fast and pratical way to export documents to be shared.
Google docs is somewhat easy to work with as well using the "share" and "publish" buttons to export HTML documents and share them with other group members. As for importing, numerous options are available through the insert tab in the toolbar menu.

Sharing and collaboration of documents within a small group
MS Word 2003/2007: If more than two people are working on a particular document, using MS Word would not prove beneficial to the group. Since only one person can make corrections at any given time with MS Word, the program lends itself to human errors when multiple people need to edit and re-save at the next revision so everyone in the group can know if they are working on the latest version of the document.
When it comes to sharing and collaboration then Ms Word2003/2007 is definitely not the best option. It has a drawback of not having a real time editing so people can not see/edit the shared document in real time.
Google Docs is a better tool compared to MS Word as far as sharing and collaboration is concerned. You can share the document and can give the permission to edit the shared document and also you can limit the sharing by restricting it to “share as viewer” in which the viewer can not edit the shared document.
Zoho writer is a better tool than MS Word and Google Docs. It has got real time editing and has the option of limiting the access of the shared document to certain people. One can see who all is editing the document and who is viewing the shared document. On top of this Zoho writer extends mobile support, adds offline capability for windows mobile using Google gears.

Wiki program is good for sharing and collaboration. Its easy to edit the shared document. It has got real time editing. One can control the sharing and collaborationby limiting the sharing rights.

Cost of using these programs (Assuming computers and internet service are already paid for)

With MS Word, an initial capital investment would be needed to purchase the software and associated licensing fees (if applicable). Besides this, one could also argue some intangible costs such as: the wasted e-mail space taken up by dozens of document iterations, lost productivity when modifying or using the wrong revision of document, and business repercussions when the wrong or incorrect revision of document is sent out and made public. Choosing Google Docs, Zoho Writer, or Wiki for collaboration purposes requires no initial capital investment. The costs associated with using any of these three programs will come from the work hours associated with learning how to use any/all of the programs properly. Google Docs and Zoho Writer would probably take the same amount of time as they are pretty close to each other in terms of functionality. Since Wiki could be used for project management type activities as well as document collaboration, it would require slightly more time for users to get familiar with and effectively use. Once the initial time investments are made with any of these programs, groups would probably save time (and ultimately money) when using any of the three internet based collaboration tools rather than MS Word.

Additional Topics

Zoho writer proved to be temperamental at first due to the issues our group had with everyone being able to view the group document. When the document was first created and sharing rights were granted to everyone in the group, only the members who were already registed with Zoho could view & edit the document. The members who registed with Zoho after being grated sharring rights were unable to view the document or the other collaborators. To get around this problem, sharing rights had to be granted once again to those collaborators.

Personal Experience in Ease of Use, Document Sharing and Collaboration

MS Word 2003/2007 :
Bryan Gall: With the vast amount of experience I have using MS Word, I feel it is very easy to use. I know where everything I need to use is located and there are plenty of options available to me. I will say that when I upgraded to Word 2007 it took me awhile to find everything again since the toolbars changed a little. However, once I figured out where everything was at in the new version I liked it more than the old version. Sharing and collaboration obviously aren't as easy in my experience as I am finding out they are in the web based word processors. Multiple people can't edit at the same time and you have to either save the file on a shared network and send others the copy when you make changes.

Chris Allen: Until participating in InfoTechTools, all of my word processing was completed using MS Word. Because of this, I have to say that this program is the easiest to use out of the whole group of word processors. It contains just about every function that is needed when drafting/editing a document. One can add and remove the tool bars that they so choose in order to personalize the program to their specific needs. However, when it comes to ease of use for collaboration purposes, MS Word really falls short of the competition. Anytime I have to work on a document with others, I have to be very careful that I am working on the latest and greatest version of the document; and I cannot work on the document while someone else is editing it; I can only view as "read only". As far as sharing an MS Word document with someone else, the only way I know of is to send a copy of it to them. Once that happens revision control of the document becomes impossible to manage.

Dimitrios Hazimihalis; MS Word is the easiest word processing program that I have used. It is also the program that I have the most experience with. I use this program for"print" opeartions mostly and "read only" documents for sharing.

Snezana Aleksic: I am Word user for years, and I am used to the features offered by Word. It also provides me with the most detailed set of features needed for professional text writing/editing. There is one disadvantage of MS Word over the Zoho, Google Docs and Wiki that is worth to mention. MS Word doesn’t have collaboration feature, so working simultaneously on the same documentation is not possible. User needs to share the document with the other person, and wait until that other person makes changes and sends the document back. Basically, it is hard to compare MS Word on one side, and ZohoWriter, Google Docs and Wiki Program on the other side, because MS Word is not an online tool. User can access documents only from their own computer, which is not the situation with the other programs that allow user to access, edit and share documents from anywhere.

James Shuster: I have used MS Word for every paper that I have written for the past 12 years. I think this program is very easy to use and has a lot of features such as preview changing, ease of incorporating Excel files in to documents, incorporating images and editing images in the file and much much more. However, I do not think it is easy to use MS Word in collaborative work. I find it very annoying to send and receive files over email. Thus, I think that google doc is probably best suited for collaborative work. Here, Google doc offers many of the easy to use features that Words does and it saves the file on the website. So, sharing is very easy. Moving forward, I will def continue to use MS Word, unless I need to share with someone via the internet. Then, I will use Google doc. Note, I know a lot of other things weren’t considered in this post such as cost and such. I believe this was just a quick comment.

Google Docs :
Hadi Chammas: In my opinion, Google Doc was a useful and powerful tool. It was easy to use, and faster than the other word processors analyzed in this assignment. When having a fairly good internet connection, this program automatically saves changes and updates what other people are editing as well. It worked best with more people editing the same document at the same time.

Bryan Gall: With the little experience I now have using Google Docs, I feel that is easy to use. Most of the needed options are available even though it doesn't have the huge variety that MS Word does. Sharing and collaborating is very easy to do using Google Docs. When someone else is editing at the same time it lets you know. Allowing multiple people to edit the document at the same time is a nice feature. You can see what other people are doing to the document simultaneously.

Chris Allen: Google docs proved to be a very good word processing tool when collaboration was the main objective. My favorite thing about it is the fact that the document automatically updates every so often when you (or others) are editing it so you are not required to "refresh" your screen when others make changes so you can see the changes. When simply drafting a document w/o collaborative purposes, I think Google Docs lacks some of the functions (such as zoom in & out, outline views, editing tags, hyperlinking within the document for tables of contents and tables of figures). I would only use Google Docs for simple documents that are short in length and do not require much formatting.

Dimitrios Hazimihalis: Google docs is a very good word processing tool. I haven't worked with it extensively to utilize its full potential. However, I believe that it does have some very good uses when collaborating with other colleagues when writing research papers, reports, etc. This is where I would use this application.

Snezana Aleksic: By researching Google Docs, I realized that offered features are interesting and very useful to work with. I use Gmail and some other Google applications, so I also became a fan of the Google Docs. It has a user friendly interface and basic options that mostly don’t differ from those offered by Word. I like the collaboration option that allows multiple users to work on the document at the same time. I tried that along with my group members and it worked very well. The disadvantage of Google Docs over MS Word is online use. Users must have a decent internet connection in order to use it.

NAVEEN GENTE: Now after the last two online discussions, I realized some of the features with Google docs, is pretty impressing. I would like to change my opinion this time on word processors, from MS word to Google docs, because even though I have good acquaintance with MS word, it lacks some the good features like online editing, that too by good number of people at the same time and save them online. In case of MS word it is like one can make their own changes and then upload them online, which others have to download and make changes. One other impressing feature with Google docs is it saves and shows the updates without any effort from the users within a fraction of the task completion, where as in WIKI wetpaint, it takes too much time, we need to refresh it every time to see the updates, which is an irritating part after using Google docs. Though I am a word user for quite some time, now I really would like to use Google docs, for many of my future applications, as it is free of cost (if we won’t consider the internet usage charges ). so, I choose Google docs now as my word processor.

James Shuster: Having experienced creating a collaborative paper with my classmates using Google doc, I was very impressed with all the features and real-time editing. I thought it was extremely useful and valuable to us in the writing process. Furthermore, it was free!! I think google doc is a really nice feature of google. From what I have read and experienced, I think google doc is going to be a “big deal.”

Zoho writer :
Bryan Gall: The Zoho writer is similar to Google Docs in that is easy to edit the document at the same time someone else is. You can see what it is they are working on. On the left side of the page you can see which collaborators are currently online as well as talk with them in a nice chat function. We used this when we were working at unit of learning 8 as there were three of us editing at the same time.

Chris Allen: I tried using Zoho writer for collaborating with my group on a document, and I think I would have much rather used Google Docs. I think this program is modeled after Google Docs, but when it comes to ease of use, I think it falls short. Zoho is very tempermental; I had a very hard time editing and formatting text sometimes and other times I didn't. The one good thing I did like about using Zoho is that I was able to chat with fellow collaborators via texting while working on the document. This proved quite useful as I did not have to use a separate program to chat; everything was available in Zoho.

Dimitrios Hazimihalis: I liked the chat function as Bryan and Chris stated above and it is similar to Google docs. Our group did chat while editing and it made LU8 easier to finish. I would use this in the similar fashion as Google docs for collaboration on certain projects.

Snezana Aleksic: I have a positive impression about Zoho Writer. It has a user friendly interface and majority of options that suit my need. There is collaboration option, as well as sharing feature. I don’t have experience with collaboration feature, but I used chat option with my group members, and that worked very well. The main disadvantage of Zoho is that it is an online tool and requires constant high-speed internet connection.

James Shuster: ZoHo was an interesting program. The features were very similar to Google doc. However, I didn’t like it as much as google doc. For some reason it would glitch up and edit too slowly. However, the features were very similar to google doc. Also, I did like the chat feature of ZOHO. I think that google doc should do something similar.

Wiki program :
Hadi Chammas: After meeting on Yugma with my classmates, and trying to create a new document for Learning Unit 10, I found Wiki Program to be very cumbersome, slow and not very practical. When more than one person is editing the same document, the changes will take a long time to save and in some cases it could get lost. One other disadvantage with Wiki is that you can only see other people's changes when you refresh the page which adds to the inconvenience. The only advantages i like about Wiki is that it keeps a detailed record of who is making changes to the common shared document, when the changes are being made, and it provides a word count for each edit.

Bryan Gall: I don't have much experience with Wiki. I like that you can see the document at various stages before and after each edit is made. The discussion forum is also a nice feature. The sharing and collaborating functions don't seem to be as good as Google Docs or Zoho.

Chris Allen: As far as using the WetPaint Wiki, I have not had a whole lot of seat-time with this particular word processing software. However, from what I have experienced, I think that it really doesn't offer me anything that distinguishes itself from Google Docs or Zoho writer. I do not like using the Wiki for real-time collaboration because you have to "refresh" your screen every-so-often to see what others have contributed/changed. I also do not like being prompted with filling out an editing tag every time I contribute or make a change. The discussion forum is a nice feature, but I really don't think it is that important. I think Wiki needs to invest more time in the text editing portion of their site. This program is satisfactory, but I would place it toward the bottom of my usage list.

Dimitrios Hazimihalis: The Wiki program is useful. I too haven't used it enough. I like the easy edit toolbar, but it doesn't give you many editing options.

Snezana Aleksic: From all aforementioned tools, I was the least impressed by Wiki. It has the same basic features as these offered by other programs, as well as sharing and collaboration features. The only reason that I can provide to explain my opinion is that I liked the interface offered by Google Docs and Zoho Writer better.

James Shuster: I haven’t experienced Wiki Wetpaint as much as I would have liked to. So, I’m not sure this opinion is fair. However, I can say that I didn’t like the editing process. I think they should convert the program to real time editing rather than having to hit save every single time and then having to go in and out of edit mode. Again, I would prefer google doc to this program.

Personal Choice for Word Processor

Hadi Chammas: Google Docs
Bryan Gall: Microsoft Word for solo work/Google Docs for group work
Chris Allen: For my particular needs, I still revert back to MS Word. Please see my post on the discussion forum for supporting details.
Dimitrios Hazimihalis: Microsoft Word for work. Google Docs for collaboration on team projects.
Snezana Aleksic: MS Word and Google Docs
NAVEEN GENTE: Google Docs and MS word.
James Shuster: depending on my needs, I will use primarily MS word and Google doc. For my argument in chooseing such, please visit my posts at the WP Choice on the Group Forum on Ning. Chris posted a link above.

References

Gilbertson, Scott. "Zoho Adds Support forMS Word 2007 Format." http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2008/02/zoho-writer-add.html (10 April, 2008)
Google Doc. "Google Docs Help Center." http://documents.google.com/support/ (11 April, 2008)
Ragsdale, J. WetPaint Wiki's: The Consumer is in Control." http://jragsdale.wordpress.com/2007/06/26/wetpaint-wikis-the-consumer-is-in-control/ (10 April, 2008)
Wetpaint. "Tell Me More." http://www.wetpaint.com/page/Tell-Me-More (11 April, 2008)
Wikipedia.org. "Microsoft Word." 12 April, 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms_word (12 April, 2008)
ZOHO Work. Online. "Zoho FAQ's." 2008. http://www.zoho.com/zoho_faq.html (12 April, 2008)

wordprocessor comparison Home

dhazimihalis — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:25:39 CDT

The following is the interpertation of MS Word, Zoho Writer, Google Docs, and Wiki Program by Jon Unger, Looja Tuladhar, Leby Sassya, and James Shuster (aka Group 4):

Availability of the formatting choices within these programs

MS Word2003/2007: This program has 19 available options in its Formatting toolbar. For example, the user can adjust the style, font characteristics, font, font size, alignment, return spacing, bullets, numbering, borders, highlighting, and font color. Other features for editing are not shown in the immediate toolbar. To access more features the user must insert additional toolbars or navigate the menu bar and fly out menus. [JJU1]
Also, Word 2007presents a lot of the menus in tab-form. These tabs keep the features organized and allow for quick and easy access by the user. In addition to the normal font sizes, fonts, font color and other extremely common word processor features, MS Word incorporates picture, drawing, and chart features within the processor, too. [Shuster]
Another useful formatting feature that Word offers is the hyper link feature. This is very useful to documents that are intended to remain electric and not become printed material. As websites are referenced or documented in reports, hyper links allow the reader or review to quickly access the URL. [Shuster]
Also, Word allows users to export documents in various formats. Some examples include: plain text, pdf, html, rich text and Word document. [Shuster]
Google Docs: Very similar to MS Word, Google Docs has many of the same features as MS Word with the addition of viewing the document in HTML, the ability to export in various file formats (PDF, HTML, RTF, etc.), as well as the ability to publish the document to the web so that it is given an unique URL that is available in web searches. Google Docs also easily pastes text that has been edited in MS Word. [JJU2]
One really nice feature of Google Doc is the ability to import documents and spread sheets of a different file type. For example, one can open a .xls file with Google Doc. Thus, importing and exporting with common programs is a snap. [Shuster]
ZOHO writer: Is a very interesting word editor, it has many options readily available to the user on its editing page including ones that I did not see “displayed” on Google or MS Word. For instance, in Zoho, the user can insert html, insert layers beneath the text, use a find and replace function, toggle a table of contents, insert various emo-icons, tab various documents on the same webpage (handy when switching back and forth or copy pasting text). Also, a few of the extra features that sets Zoho apart is its ability to export files into multiple file types such as PDF, Latex, DOCX, SWX, etc. Zoho can also share, publish, email, and embed the text into a blog. [JJU3]
Wiki program: This site has far less tools to edit text and imbed features. It does have some of the standard tools such as the ones listed for MS Word. The EasyEdit Toolbar is very large and very hard to hide; you can simply close it but then you need to reopen everytime instead of making it small enough so it will not block half of the page. it is very wonderful to have access to all these feature with a click of a button without having to pay for expensive software. [JJU4]

Yes, the formatting choices with Wiki are few. Furthermore, the editing of a page is much more difficult. While editing and starting a new line in a different font and color, there seems to be a glitch that will not allow the user to change the font type. I just had that trouble while inserting this line. I could not get the font to go back to black and not underlined. [Shuster]

Grammar, spell checking and word count options

MS Word2003/2007: Acquires misspelled words quickly without having to click on the spell check icon. It also picks up on various types of grammar mistakes. The user can select what types of grammatical errors it wants MS Word to make an active search for while the user types. Word count can be accessed via the top menu or by toolbar.[JJU5]
Google Docs: GD has a similar spell check option to MS Word; however it does not actively search for words as they are written like MS word. GD also supports word count. It can be accessed through the file button on the left hand side of the screen.[JJU6]
ZOHO writer: Zoho is about the same as GD, however, the user can select what language they want to run spell check in. Zoho does not support word count.[JJU7]
Furthermore, ZOHO seems less effective at guessing the correct misspelled words. I purposely missspelled a few words ZOHO could not guess the correct word. It seems that the algorithm requires a significant portion of the first few letters of the word. [Shuster]
Wiki program: Wiki is probably the simplest online program for word editing. It supports spell check like GD and Zoho, but does not have additional features like the language availability like Zoho or word count like GD.[JJU8]

Importing the documents from different formats within the document writer program and then exporting these documents to different formats such as .doc, .pdf, .rtf, html etc.

MS Word2003/2007: Word will import files in the following formats: doc, xml, works, pdf, xps, html, rtf, word perfect, and text. It will export to all of those except the word perfect format.[JJU9]
Google Docs: Can upload files in the following formats: Microsoft Word (.doc), Rich Text (.rtf), OpenDocument Text (.odt) and StarOffice (.sxw). It cannot upload documents that are Adobe PDF. It will export documents into HTML, RTF, Word, PDF, Open Office, and text.[JJU10]
ZOHO writer: Zoho can import html, doc, sxw (Open Office) , odt, rtf, jpg, gif, png and text files. It will export files into doc, docx, PDF, txt, ODF, Latex, SXW, rtf, and Html.[JJU11]
Unless I am missing something, it seems that Wiki does not support exporting of different formats. [Shuster]

Cost of using these programs

MS Word2003/2007: May be installed on computer upon purchase, normally $ 229.00, Upgrade Price = $109.95.
Google Docs: Free after user sign-up.
ZOHO writer: Free after user sign-up.
Wiki program: Free after user sign-up.

Here, users will have to decide what features are important and necessary before they subscribe to a particular program. Three important questions will include: cost, convenience, and features. [Shuster]

Ease of use Including document sharing, collaboration, and ease of use

MS Word2003/2007: Word allows the user to export their document as html which can be embedded into a web site that allows social networking, however it does not allow users to subscribe to their document or share files without a Peer to Peer program. This program is relatively easy to navigate and use. At times it does not copy/paste material very accurately and is sometimes difficult to format material.[JJU12]
MS Word is very convenient with respect to sharing and collaboration. However, the program does require the users to have access to the Word file which is not inherently available online unlike GD, ZW and WP. Furthermore, MS Word is very easy to use, comes with a great self-help tutorial and is very intuitive. I've never taken a class read a manualon MS Word, but I am very proficient with the program. [Shuster]
Google Docs: A subscriber can submit email addresses of other people that they would like to view their documents as well as edit them.This needs a google account,which lot of people already have,to use other google features. This is an easy program to use and carries many features that are easily accessible and understandable.[JJU13]
ZOHO writer: Is a fairly comprehensive word editing program. Unlike Google, this web site is solely dedicated to word processing while Google offers many other programs net users can take advantage of. With the submission of email addresses, users can let other subscribe to their documents for viewing and editing.[JJU14]
Wiki program: Takes the documents that are created and turns them into a website of documents that people can view and comment upon. It’s editing processor is not very powerful and does not offer the options that the other web sites do. [JJU15]

Additional Features worth mentioning…

MS Word2003/2007: Comments can be inserted next to paragraphs that were written by each user. This is useful in case you have multiple users working on the same document. Comments allow users to see who made changes or additions to the document. Word puts comments to the right of the page.
Google Docs: As far as comments are concerned, they can be copy pasted into GD; however, GD lists the comments at the bottom of the document and not next to the paragraphs they belong to. This can consume much space.
ZOHO writer: Comments are the same as GD.
ZOHO was a little frustrating to use. Our group had sharing/editing issues at the beginning. The program would not allow some of us to edit the document. However, this problem subsided. [Shuster]
Wiki program: Comments are the same as GD.

Give them a try...

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