Create, edit, and share Microsoft Office format documents online without any software

Posted on March 27, 2007 at 3:19 pm

Make sure to read other posts from the Online Office Suites series!

  1. Review of Live Documents - Office 2007 online replacement
  2. First look and review of Microsoft Office Live Workspace Beta
  3. Adobe BuzzWord - New online web-based Word Processor
  4. Zoho - Free online office applications - Word Processor, Spreadsheets, etc
  5. IBM offers alternative to MS Office with Lotus Symphony
  6. Create, edit, and share Microsoft Office format documents online without any software
  7. Create online web presentations using Google Docs presentations

Wish you could create Office files online and have people view them without needing Office software? Well, I just bumped into some really neat looking software that can REALLY help you if you’re a small business and don’t want to spend a large amount of money on Office licenses. Using ThinkFree.com, you can create Office files, view, edit, and share them all for free! You can easily collaborate with others and allow them to make edits and contribute their ideas.

The program runs through the web, so it works on Windwows, MAC and Linux, thereby freeing you of those platform specific issues. I tried the program by signing up and in a few seconds I got an email to activate my account. I signed on, uploaded an Excel file and was able to view it without any problems!

And the interface for the program is almost exactly like that of Microsoft Excel, so there is no need to relearn anything. I played around with editing my spreadsheet and found it to be just as fast as a desktop application, impressive considering it’s running off the web. The only thing that needs to be installed in order for the editing to work is the Java plug-in, but it does that for you anyway. Here’s what the main screen and the Excel spreadsheet looked like:

And of course, you can create Word documents and PowerPoint presentations also. Create your files online and share it with others and they can view it online also, no need to buy any expensive Office software. And all of the documents can be opened with Microsoft Office, so if you send to someone who has the software suite, they can download the file and it will open on their computer without any issues!

Another web site called Thumbstacks.com is just for creating presentations on the web and sharing your presentation with others via email. It’s also pretty cool, you can create, save, and modify a presentation right on the web. It’s like PowerPoint, but has less features since it’s online. The interface is clean and also looks like a desktop application.

You can create presentations in IE, FireFox and use it on Windows, MAC, or Linux. The presentations can be watched be watched on just about any modern browser including Opera and Konquer. It has a WYSIWYG style of editing and you can use themes to create consistent slides in a presentation.

There are a few things it cannot do just yet:

1. Slide Transitions
2. Animations and Actions
3. Sounds and Video
4. Drawing Tools

Hopefully, these will be coming in the newer versions. It’s great for teachers or anyone who wants to create a simple presentation of ideas and send it to a group of people without having to worry about whether they have Office installed or not.

It also has an interesting remote feature that lets you show a presentation to someone over the internet in real-time. And there is no need for Java plugins using this site.

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One Response to “Create, edit, and share Microsoft Office format documents online without any software”

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  1. Zoho - Free online office applications - Word Processor, Spreadsheets, etc Says:

    [...] Welcome to Online Tech Tips, a great resource for computer tutorials, technology news, software reviews, and personal computing tips. If you’re new here and you like the content, you can subscribe to my RSS feed to get daily tips. Thanks for visiting!Boy, the days of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint being the only office productivity software applications out there are pretty much over. Heck, now there are not only MORE office applications out there that you can choose from, they are also web-based and open source, which means they’ll work with Microsoft Office and other office programs such as Google Docs and Spreadsheets, IBM Lotus Symphony, or ThinkFree. [...]

    October 10th, 2007 at 11:58 am
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