Date: Monday, August 13, 2007

Microsoft office to allow users to ThinkFree?

ThinkFree is the latest online version of Microsoft Office which allows users to edit, share and compose articles online, but does it serve any real purpose?

ThinkFree is being heralded as the latest great development in the online world, the ability to use all the functions of Microsoft Office and not have to pay for them. But the lack of speed and multitude of Google adverts alongside your document do put a bit of a downer on it. For non-commercial use it appears the webpage does serve some purpose, but for any other reason, you are best off going out and buying yourself the latest edition of Microsoft Office. ThinkFree allows users the opportunity to compose, edit, and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations online. However, the quality of the articles does not seem to be as good as that which you get with the genuine version of Microsoft Office. The save functions are also not up-to-scratch, as some articles saved on the ThinkFree web browser are sometimes not able to be opened as doc files. However, for those who only need to edit a file occasionally or wish to share documents online or manipulate documents from an internet café, ThinkFree does have some use. On ThinkFree you can either view an article, or edit it using Quick Edit which is written with Ajax coding and runs inside the web browser, or Power Edit which is uses Sun's Java coding. Quick Edit loads quite rapidly but is not very powerful, whereas Power Edit, although taking longer to load as it has to be downloaded, is more efficient and afterwards runs like any other program on your hard drive.

ThinkFree can also be used as a word processor in a similar way to Microsoft Word with all the common applications available within it. However they do not work as well as the authentic version, but documents can then be saved as RTF, Word documents, PDF, XML and docx, the new format from Office 2007. Spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations can also be edited online, but again to not appear as polished as they do on Microsoft Office. Using the file open tool which allows users to load files from their hard drive and save them online, and open files from the website and save them to their hard drive enables users to run documents through ThinkFree Office and view them in a useable format. Thinkfree appears to be of little use to people who use Microsoft Office on a daily basis, but for those who use it occasionally or for those who need to view articles which will not load on their normal application, this is a handy tool.

Source: Guardian