Friday, March 24, 2006
Another new online word processor
This one is called AjaxWrite, and is billed as “a streamlined word processor, comparable to Microsoft Word.” The developers wisely left out a number of advanced features that not everyone uses – the 80/20 rule in action yet again.
AjaxWrite can read Microsoft Word, Microsoft Works, WordPerfect, OpenOffice.org. and StarOffice files; it choked on a couple of OpenDocument Format files that I tried to open. You save files in Word, RTF, text, and PDF formats. The PDF writer failed when I tried to use it, though.
What’s interesting is that unlike other online word processors, you open files from and save them to your computer. AjaxWrite is merely the editor. The tabbed interface is a nice touch, too, allowing you to have multiple documents open simultaneously while making it easy to move between them.
The main drawback is that AjaxWrite doesn’t support paragraph styles. For some, the fact that AjaxWrite only works with Firefox (version 1.5 or higher) could be a negative (not me, though). And I wish there was some way to stop the “welcome” document from popping up every time you launch the application.
AjaxWrite can read Microsoft Word, Microsoft Works, WordPerfect, OpenOffice.org. and StarOffice files; it choked on a couple of OpenDocument Format files that I tried to open. You save files in Word, RTF, text, and PDF formats. The PDF writer failed when I tried to use it, though.
What’s interesting is that unlike other online word processors, you open files from and save them to your computer. AjaxWrite is merely the editor. The tabbed interface is a nice touch, too, allowing you to have multiple documents open simultaneously while making it easy to move between them.
The main drawback is that AjaxWrite doesn’t support paragraph styles. For some, the fact that AjaxWrite only works with Firefox (version 1.5 or higher) could be a negative (not me, though). And I wish there was some way to stop the “welcome” document from popping up every time you launch the application.
