Zoho Docs is an online office suite that has been around for about a decade. Like Google, it has the traditional applications: word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Sheet), and presentation (Show). These applications are tied in to the document management system, Docs, and the applications are opened by clicking on the documents in the management system. Unlike Google Drive, Zoho Docs only has these three applications. More cannot be added to the office suite through a store.
However, the Zoho Corporation offers more than just office suite applications. It has finance, human resources, business process, and other applications as well.
Docs and its applications work in most Web browsers, and all of its tools and features are available in all of the ones they support. These are Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, and Opera. This means that the office suite works on almost any computer with a modern Web browser. Users are not limited to Windows and Mac.
Like Google, Zoho has developed proprietary file formats for its office applications. However, documents that are uploaded in Microsoft Office, OpenDocument, and a few other formats do not need to be converted to these proprietary formats to be opened. All of the applications’ tools and features are available in these documents. The applications also can export documents in standard Microsoft Office, OpenDocument, HTML, PDF, and few other formats.
Web browsers are not the only way to access Zoho Docs. Zoho has made Docs and Writer apps for Android and iOS. The Docs apps let users edit documents, download documents, and perform several other functions. The Writer app allows users to create and edit word processing documents, even when devices are offline. There is also a Writer app for Mac OS X that can be downloaded from the Mac Store.
Zoho also makes Zoho Docs for Desktop. This is an application that syncs files from a Zoho Docs account with an individual computer. A folder is created on the desktop. The files and folders from that account are saved to that folder. Documents stored in that folder can be previewed in Zoho Docs.Documents that are saved to the folder on a computer will be uploaded to the cloud. Zoho Docs for Desktop runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac, and several Linux distributions.
To edit them and collaborate with others in them, they need to be converted to one of Zoho’s office formats.
- Writer (zdoc)
- Sheet (zsheet)
- Show (zshow)
History
The Zoho Corporation began in 1996 as AdventNet Inc in California, a network management company. Writer, launched in October 2005, was its first cloud-based business application. A year later Sheet and Show joined it. In 2007, the company released Docs, tying a document management system with the three applications. Starting in 2007, several other applications, not part of its office suite, were launched. In 2009, AdventNet changed its name to Zoho Corporation.