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10 Myths about Google Docs


When discussing around me about Google Docs in the corporate world, I'm very often surprised to see the difference between the people who use it -and generally love it-, and the people who have never used it -and have tons of reasons for not doing so-. Here are the 10 justifications I'm earing the most:

1. Google Spreadsheets do not support complex data analysis: wrong, the function list contains hundreds of functions for Math, Date, Financial, Statistical, and Engineering Analysis. The database functions even allow Google Spreadsheets to query and process data from other databases. It can be fully customized using Google Apps Scripts, based on Javascript. You can create charts in a spreadsheet and publish them on an intranet webpage, so they get updated every time you update the data, in real time.

2. You can’t send a Google Document easily as an attachment in another format: wrong, you can export a document by selecting “Email as attachment...” and select the document type (HTML, Open, Plain Text, RTF, MS Word, MS Excel, MS Powerpoint, PDF, CSV,). The conversion is done automatically when sending the email and the layout is fully respected.

3. Conversion of MS Office documents in Google Docs format doesn’t work properly: partially wrong, for most of the documents, the conversion is perfect. Only specific proprietary items in documents are not converted properly (like Smart Arts, or Excel Charts for instance). Some styles (like paragraph numbering) may also be changed during the conversion process.

4. You can’t work with documents offline: wrong, the offline Google Docs extension allows to see your documents offline in Google Chrome. In addition, the Google Drive extension will allow to work offline with any non-Google document (e.g. : MS Word, MS Project, MS Visio), which will be synched later on when an internet connection will be available.

5. Google Docs is intended to fully replace MS Office: wrong, MS Office is still the standard in all companies worldwide for document creation. Google Docs offers a new way to work with documents and many import/export functionalities to facilitate the collaboration of people who are using MS Office exclusively. Their functionalities are complementary. It is not intended to replace MS Office in a near future, even if its use will probably decrease significantly for some users because of Google Docs.

6. Google Docs doesn’t provide version control: partially wrong, Google Docs doesn’t provide a classical check-in / check-out functionality, neither automatic version numbering, but it keeps track of every changes made by any user (“File / Revision History”), and allows to roll-back to any version of the document.

7. Google Docs is not working in all browsers: true, obsolete browsers (IE 6, IE 7, Firefox versions which do not support HTML5) do not allow to use Google Docs. All HTML5 compatible browsers (IE 8 or >, Firefox 12 or >, Safari, Google Chrome) allow to work with it. Specific advanced functionalities (e.g. : offline access) are only available in Google Chrome.

8. Google Docs is limited in terms of storage: partially true, storage of documents in Google Docs format is totally unlimited. Storage of documents in native formats (MS Office, others) are limited to 5 Gb by default (extendable up to 16 Tb per user, for 0,25 $ / Gb / month).

9. There will be the same uncontrolled mess in Google Docs that we have in our company shared pools: wrong or true, it depends. Google provides all the tools necessary to control the use of Google Docs. It will be able to set journaling in place (e.g. : in case of legal hold) for each individual user -and e-discovery- with Google Vault later this year. Third party products (e.g.: CloudLock), or internal developments, can also provide auditing functionalities (e.g.: which documents are shared externally, which document are shared with a specific person).

10. Google Docs is risky because you can share files with externals: wrong, it’s not more dangerous than to send document attachments in an e-mail to external. In addition, every time you will share a document with someone outside your domain, a dialog box will pop up to ask you if you really want to do it.
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