Zoho Personal: Free online Office Suite

Zoho Personal is a free to use web-based office suite which clubs all the applications into one bundle and makes it available to users in a single browser window. If you have heard a lot about cloud computing and always wondered what it could mean to an end user of internet, then Zoho Personal is a good example for software-as-a-service (SaaS) type of cloud computing. The idea behind this is to provide users with software and data storage as a single service on the web so that users can access their work from anywhere using any machine.

Zoho Personal has the complete range of office software: Writer (word processor), Sheet (spreadsheet application), Show (Presentation tool), Calendar, Tasks and a host of other useful tools all accessible inside a browser window. Users even have the option of adding third party applications like Google Reader to the suite to truly personalize it. You can either start a new registration or use your existing Google or Yahoo login at zoho in order to use this completely free service. All you need is a compatible browser and high speed internet.

The Zoho web interface gives easy access to all it’s applications. With the left side menu, you can access all the zoho applications easily.

Documents of various different file types can be imported from your pc or a web url into Zoho applications. For e.g Zoho Writer can import Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, Html and several other file types. Zoho Sheet can import xls and osd spreadsheets apart from other supported types. Documents can be saved to your pc by using the export tool in different formats supported by Zoho. All documents can be exported to pdf format and hence there is no need of a separate application for pdf conversion. Unfortunately Zoho doesnt yet support importing of pdf documents.

Sharing and Collaboration is an integral part of Zoho and can be done across all applications with other Zoho users. Any number of personal groups can be created and members invited to collaboratively share documents.

Zoho also supports version control of documents. Every time you ’save’ a file it is versioned to the next higher level. Only pressing the save button explicitly would cause versioning and not by automatic periodic savings.

With Zoho personal, you can easily access, edit or share your data. All you need is a internet connection and a compatible browser. Next time you go to a cyber cafe, you may not worry about whether Office suite is installed in that PC. Also there is no fear of losing work upon loss of a hard drive or a stolen laptop. Zoho creates multiple backups of every file stored on it.

Zoho Personal gives basic tools for creating and editing. You can’t expect all high end tools given in MS Office or Open Office applications. Though Zoho uses Google Gears to store some data on the local pc to let users edit while being offline, broadband speed is a must in order to use this software. Also security and privacy of data definitely needs to be given due consideration before storing sensitive data on Zoho.