There are many online Office Suites on the internet, e.g Google Docs, Zoho and few others. Recently, I came across an excellent online Office Suite, Live Documents, which allow users to create, share and manage their documents, spreadsheets and presentations online.
Live Documents is a free online office productivity suite which brings all the features of Microsoft Office and Google Docs at your fingertips. In order you use the service, you must create an account so that you can manage your documents, spreadsheets and presentations. In order to make an account, click on Sign Up button on the main page. Once you click sign up, it will open a new window where you can enter your desired login details. Fill in the details and click Register.
The service requires you to authenticate your email account. You will receive and email with an activation link.
Now, login with you details. If you don’t want to sign up, you can login using you Yahoo, Google or Google Apps account as well. Be patient as it might take some time to load.
Once you login, it will take you to Live documents dashboard. The service has one of the best interfaces I have seen before. You can create documents, import documents from your computer or Google Docs and much more. The only drawback is that the taskbar icon does not have any title which makes it difficult to identify them.
Importing Document in Live Documents
Click on Import Document button in the dashboard.
Select the files you want to add to Live documents and click Next. You can select multiple documents as well.
It will then ask you whether you want to share the documents over the internet or with other registered Live documents users or not. You can even add separate email address of the recipient with whom you want to share the document. Once you are done, click Next.
It will ask you to edit the properties of the document you upload. Enter the details and click Finish.
Click on My Documents in the dashboard and it will show you the list of documents you uploaded/created.
Creating a Document/Spreadsheet/Presentation
Click on Create Document icon in the dashboard.
It will ask you to name the document. Just type the name and click Next.
New window will pop up which will ask you whether you want to share the document with anyone. Select the recipient and click Next.
It will then open edit document properties to enter the title, description and tags of the document you want to create.
Click Finish and it will open my documents along with any other document which you just created.
It will open Live Writer so that you can add content to the document you just created.
Just enter whatever you want to. In the right sidebar, you can see styles and other text options including fonts, bullets, tables etc. it has almost everything that is present in Microsoft Office. Once you are done with you document, save it and access whenever you want to through My Documents in the Dashboard.
If you want to create a spreadsheet or a presentation, follow the same process and you will be done in no time. In my opinion, Live Documents is an excellent Microsoft Office alternative and has all features that are present in Microsoft Office. So, I will recommend this software if you don’t have Micrososft Office installed on your machine.
