Review of Live Documents - Office 2007 online replacement

Posted on January 18, 2008 at 8:20 am

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

I still use Microsoft Office to create, edit and modify documents, spreadsheets, and powerpoint presentations, but maybe not for too much longer! Why? There’s a new online office suite coming out soon called Live Documents and the only word I have for it is kickass! Imagine an online version of Microsoft Office 2007 that looks just the same, works faster, and is completely free!

Live Documents is still in beta, but I was able to get a beta invite to test it out! I have to say that it is by far the coolest looking and most functional online office suite I have messed around with and I’ve played around with a bunch including Zoho, Google Docs, and ThinkFree.

Live Documents was built using RIA technologies such as Flash and Flex, thereby giving it a very fast and Web 2.0 rich interface. It’s a full-featured online office suite that offers functionality equivalent to Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

Also, it includes a optional desktop client application that plugs right into Microsoft Office applications and embeds collaborative capabilities into the apps, including the ability to share documents and have several people edit them at the same time. It also contains features that allow users to control access to documents and to revert back to previous versions (stores revisions).

However, the best feature on top of everything mentioned above is that fact that users can work OFFLINE in Live Documents, either from their desktop or via the web interface, and all changes will be synchronized once the computer connects back to the Internet.

Documents created by Live Documents are completely compatible with Microsoft Office and other open source formats such as Open Office. Basically, it breaks Microsoft proprietary format lock-in while at the same time giving you all of the benefits of the latest version of Office 2007, such as macros, table styles, conditional formatting, and live preview changes like in Powerpoint 2007.

The Dashboard screen in Live Documents includes a menu across the bottom where you can view your documents, manage access requests to your documents, manage your contacts, change your settings, add a signature, create tasks, or create discussions.

Clicking on Documents will give you a list of your current documents along with a bunch of options going across the top, which are the same as the options on the bottom of the Dashboard. You can download your documents to your desktop, upload a document from you local computer, or create a new document online.

Now for the fun part! Let’s go ahead and create a new document and see what the interface looks like. I think by far the best thing about Live Documents is how well they replicated the Office 2007 interface. The ribbon interface is exactly the same and it is exceptionally responsive. Clicking between the different menu options brings up each ribbon instantly. Here’s a few screenshots:

Live Documents Excel Interface

Live Documents PowerPoint Interface

Live Documents Word Interface

Unfortunately, the Word interface did not load correctly and therefore I could only get one screenshot! I guess that’s why it’s still in beta! Impressed? Some other cool features include the ability to enter macros in the spreadsheet application and the live preview feature of Powerpoint, whereby you can see changes in real time on the slide when scrolling over colors or font styles.

Finally, you can install the Live Documents Desktop Client application that will allow you to share documents with others directly from your desktop Office suite or work offline when not connected to the Internet.

Whether this online Office suite will turn users from Microsoft Office is highly speculative. Definitely most corporations would never switch, it’s really geared towards the casual office user who may not want to spend $500 on MS Office if this can do the same thing. I really doubt Microsoft will lose any market share, but it’s definitely competition for Zoho, Google Docs, ThinkFree. What do you think? Would you use this over MS Office?

Technorati Tags: live documents, microsoft office, office live documents, online office suite, free online office, free office, online word processor, online powerpoint, online spreadsheet

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7 Responses to “Review of Live Documents - Office 2007 online replacement”

Madhur Kapoor said on : January 18th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

Great review buddy . This makes me wanna try it out but it doesnt work well in my slow college connection

rambhai said on : January 19th, 2008 at 12:57 am

well there is also a plugin that you can install in IE and then it will open all your documents that is also for free but this is indeed tempting~~

Anatoly said on : January 19th, 2008 at 2:42 am

I am currently using Open Office for editing documents and Google Docs for online storage and backup.
For backup live documents are a weak choice - they are a new product and Google has much more reputation. But it seems to me that they are more intuitive than Open Office.. Too bad they are invite only.
Also what about support for other languages?

Shashank said on : January 21st, 2008 at 11:20 am

Great review ..live documents sounds interesting.

akishore said on : January 22nd, 2008 at 12:01 am

Madhur - Hopefully you’ll get to try it once you’re out of college and working for an IT company!

Rambhai - What’s the plugin you are talking about by the way?

Anatoly - I think it only supports English at this time. I prefer to use DocSyncer since it auto uploads all my files and I can open them in Google Docs.

Shashank - Thanks for visiting and reading buddy!

kalivd said on : January 24th, 2008 at 8:26 am

Does “liveDocuments” allow the users to create the documents offline and upload them without having to login to the account like in eDeskOnline, Thinkfree. Since you have mentioned that you have already played around with Thinkfree, Zoho, I suggest you also look at eDeskOnline.

Recap of last month’s best posts on Online Tech Tips Says:

[...] Review of Live Documents - Office 2007 online replacementI still use Microsoft Office to create, edit and modify documents, spreadsheets, and powerpoint presentations, but maybe not for too much longer! Why? There’s a new online office suite coming out soon called Live Documents and the only word I have for it is kickass! [...]
February 1st, 2008 at 10:06 am