An Internet connection is required on the desktop unless you’ve previously enabled your Google Drive files to be available offline on your Chromebook.

Apps for Google Docs are available for Android and iOS. That includes Windows, MacOS, Linux, Chrome OS, and (in some cases) even mobile platforms running in compatibility mode. Screenshot Platform, add-on, and accessibility optionsĪs a web-based service, Google Docs is available on any desktop platform with a modern browser.

In fact, if Google Docs users were to select the Share button in Word, they’d see sharing options that now look very similar to what Docs offers, including the ability to copy a link to the document.Īlso, while Word has features like Track Changes and comments for collaboration, the Google Docs Version History feature allows users to compare any document changes with old versions and know who made them and when. But now, Word has appeared to have caught up to Docs in this regard. Google Docs users have been able to easily control who can edit, comment, or be able to access the document in the first place, whereas Word documents could only be shared with specific contacts. When quickly creating documents that can be shared with Google Drive and be almost instantly distributed worldwide if need be, Google Docs has historically had the edge. It is a bit unwieldy, however, and users foreign to it may find it confusing. Word includes editing and markup tools for sharing and editing among teams, and the latter Office/Microsoft 365 versions of the program do allow for web-based editing and sharing. Microsoft Word has notable limitations in doing the same, as many editing elements like layout and formatting can be lost in translation. Google Docs files can be downloaded in some of the same formats as Word documents, but they excel at immediately publishing documents as webpages. While both Word and Docs are compatible with the most commonly used word processing formats like Word, PDF, and rich text, Word can import its files much more quickly and is much better at displaying complex file formats consistently across different programs of the Microsoft family.

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