Saturday, October 9, 2010

Thing #13 Web-based Applications

I took a look at Zoho Writer's features. I clicked on every single button and checked them all out to see what they would do. I'm still just learning to use some of the features in Microsoft Word and figuring out the differences between my ancient PC and my new Mac, so there are a lot of things in Zoho Writer that I don't even know what they mean. I do, however, understand the concept behind some of the things that Zoho Writer can do, and I think that it can be a very useful tool. I would most likely have to take a class to understand how to use all of the features that Zoho has. While trying to check out all the features, I got lost on their website and could not figure out how to get back to the Writer part of the site. I had to sign out and then sign back in to locate it.
So I finally got around to actually creating a document. I could choose a background color for my document and give it a watermark. Those were neat things. Especially the watermark. In the past, I have sometimes created many versions of a paper before finally turning it in, and this would have been a handy feature to have. The page format also had an interesting feature of being able to write from right to left. I have read that some Arab countries read from right to left, so if one were creating a document for sharing in those countries, that would be a handy feature.
The format toolbar had some interesting features. I liked the strikethrough feature, the superscript and subscript, the various styles of quotations and parenthesis, and the border options. It also had some unique spacing options and sorting options. Some things that I didn't understand how to use were the Aa button-why would you use that?-remove all text styles button, and the sort by string option. I don't know what a string is.
The insert tab also had some things that I understand and some things that I don't. Loved the special characters, equations options, and comment options. I have no idea what an anchor or a style sheet are, how to use an auto field, or why one would want to use the horizontal rule.
I understood and knew how to use all of the review features. How handy to have all of these features in one place!
The share tab had some wonderful options. It's possible to share a document with individuals or groups, publish it online, share only certain details with certain people, and collect digital signatures.
The views tab was pretty run of the mill. Except for the HTML Code View option. I have never seen that before.
The mailings were mail merge options, and I'm pretty sure I could figure that all out, eventually.
The import feature seemed simple enough. The export feature had things that I have no idea what they are: odt, sxw,rtf, and latex. The file tab had a couple of neat features that I liked: save as a template, and properties. Also had some I would need to figure out: print using pdf being one and the export option the other.
The toolbar at the top right of Zoho Writer had some amazing options. They were too many to list, and it would definitely take me a while to learn all of them. The help option really did seem to be helpful and easy to use though.
I'm glad I know about this online application. It has many features that I have not encountered elsewhere and that would be very useful. I plan to return to it in the future and learn how to use all of the features. Who knows...I may write a book some day, and this free application will have everything I need to do it.

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