Regular advanced user of MS Word in Windows environment for many years, finding a lightweight alternative to my heavy and cumbersome laptop for writing anytime, anywhere was the prime driver for purchasing my Samsung Chromebook.
You may read my ongoing Chromebook testing by >clicking here<
Last update: January 1st, 2014. Follow me on >twitter< to stay posted about updates.
The comparison here is between MS Word 2010 and current Google Document (September 2013).
Contents
- Latest comment of mine - About me as a tester - My Chromebook
- First contact - Changing some habits
- Challenging Google doc - Setting up the challenge -
- Slugging through bigger files - Stats about the document
- Generate / Navigate Table of contents - Unpleasant things in converted Google Doc
- Syncing offline <=> online - Sharing documents - Printing with a Chromebook
- Disclaimer
Latest comment of mineI fantasied getting a low-cost clone of MS Word enabling me to author a full book. So far I think I just got a better notepad. |
About me as a testerI would define myself as an average IT user, not an expert neither a geek. I am used to MS Windows and Office, mainly using Firefox as web browser. I scarcely used Chrome before purchasing my Chromebook. My comments are necessarily biased by this background. Please note that I am French native speaker, using a French version of Google OS. Therefore, naming may be different between my translation into English and the original name. As I appreciate to find user's reviews on the Web before purchasing, I try to pay back to the community with this "review", "field test" or testimony about my Chromebook and related Apps. Feel free to >contact me< for any correction, suggestion. |
My ChromebookMy testimony is based on my Samsung Chromebook model 303C12, purchased in France, July 2013 for 299€. I chose this model because it appeared as the best buy at the moment of decision. | |
Google document first contact
My first contact with Google document made me feel relatively familiar with the display. Everything basic was there:
- The blank sheet
- Horizontal rule
- The menu and icon strip band with most often used buttons
A double vertical arrow at right side hides or shows the upper part of the workspace (document title and menu strip band, allowing more space on the working sheet to be displayed.
Zooming in or out (magnifying the document) is possible with a dropdown list. Default is 100%.
Another, possibility offered for this purpose is clicking the triple bar button at top right, it opens the settings dropdown menu with zoom adjustment roughly in the middle. A scare button in the same menu line allows full screen to regular toggling.
If the workspace ergonomics seemed okay, I‘ll soon noticed a slight difference with the more complete keyboard of my laptop PC compared to the simplified Chromebook’s keyboard. If this is more related to hardware, it has a significant impact on typing habits nevertheless. The shortcuts and convenient keys (home, delete, end, Function) are gone.
Five hierarchy levels ranging from Title to Title 3, via subtitle and level 1 to 2 titles are provided. Styles are customizable.
Twelve fonts are provided by default, other can be added. All fonts show samples in the dropdown font menu.
Document’s spell-checking uses on line resources. it is pretty fast when connection throughput is good and seems acceptably accurate compared to MS Word’s. Even so Document is able to recognize the language, setting the language in document’s properties seems to improve the responsiveness, but this is more an assumption of mine than a proven fact.
Any modification is almost instantly saved to Drive when online or locally if offline. A notification right to menu bar informs you of the saving process result. After a longer time without change, this notification is about time elapsed since last modification.
Challenging Google Docs
I would assess myself as an advanced MS Word user in so far I’m familiar with automatic content table building, text formatting, index entries, footnotes and such things which help writing academic papers or books.
As a chose the Chromebook to author anytime, anywhere, conveniently, I want to know if my choice matches my expectations or if all I got is a just a better notepad.
For challenging Google doc, I thought it would be meaningful to upload one of my compuscripts, completely written with MS Word, onto Google Drive and open it with Google doc and compare the fidelity to original.
Setting up the challenge
Very logically I started uploading my latest book “Lean Management”, a MS Word file of 4,994 kb. The Google converter started its chore until it came up with the message “files greater than 2Mb cannot be converted”. Not very lean process I thought, the converter could have checked the file size before starting.
I discovered a bit later that a setting “check parameters before importing” can be set, yet the result does not change…
Okay, next trial, an older book of mine (“Techniques de productivité”) 2,308kb, hoping that the 2Mb limit is not to be taken literally.
It is. “files greater than 2Mb cannot be converted”.
I than picked my first book (Audit combine Qualité/Supply Chain) 1,419 kbyte and tried again. After few seconds, the converter informed me of the successful conversion, and the file appeared in my Drive file list.
Next step, I’d like to know the file size once converted into Doc format. Impossible to find it. I checked every menu, setting both in Drive and Doc, no way to get the file size! Even the “quota used” indication in Drive did not return any value. If anybody of you dear readers know, please share the trick. E-mail me >here<
Slugging through bigger files
What is immediately noticeable is the slowing down of the Chromebook’s responsiveness, that lets you waiting a bit until a menu from upper bar drops down its list, for scrolling it down – by the way not very smoothly - or when “right clicking” (actually tapping with two fingers) until the contextual menu shows up.
Okay, I know it’s probably unfair to compare the power of Intel’s Core i5 with the Chromebook XE303C12 dual-core Samsung Exynos 5250, which runs at 1.7GHz, but… I am a poised and demanding user, not to be soothed with technical justification. What I notice a bit bitterly is that a rather small file in windows environment (1,4Mb) is slowing the Chromebook down a lot.
Stats about the document
Before any other comparison, I wanted to see the stats about the document in order to get a hint of the “fidelity” of the conversion process. MS Word as well as Google Doc provides a simple statistics summary, which for my test documents shows:
|
|
Windows MS Word |
Google OS / Drive |
|
Pages |
155 |
156 |
|
Words |
44,837 |
44,566 |
|
Signs (without spaces) |
253,267 |
253,523 |
|
Signs (with spaces) |
296,669 |
296,339 |
|
Paragraphs |
2,044 |
? |
|
Lines |
6,510 |
? |
The slight differences I guess, is related to text formatting, the hidden tags and so forth. So far nothing to worry about.
Table of contents - Generate, navigate
Next check is about the table of contents, automatically built by MS Word, how it appears in both systems.
Each system has its own stylesheet and conversion did not keep all original fonts and style setting from MS Word to Google Doc. Both tables of contents range from page 2 to 5. While hyperlinks get you to the appropriate place in the document when Ctrl+Click in Word, nothing similar is proposed in Doc, or at least I was unable to find it. Ctrl+tap, dual finger tap, Alt or Ctrl+click did not help either. The only help item about “table of contents” in Doc is about how to refresh the table.
Unpleasant things in converted Google Doc
Flying over footnote entries in Word displays the note in a small popup note. Nothing happens in Doc. Fortunately, footnotes do appear and numbering sticks to original.
The Doc dictionary seems to be a lot poorer than Word’s, many common words are underlined in red and declared “absent form dictionary”. (Remember my file is in French language, but I am running my test in a French version of Chrome OS).
Some of the inserted images are distorted in Doc, but not all. I guess this is the resizing / cropping that is interpreted differently in Doc.
Syncing offline <=> online
Chromebooks are tied to Internet connections as they use distant resources (Google Drive e.g.) but can be used offline purposely or if no connection is availlable. Once an Internet connection is available, the local modifications are synced with the document's version saved on the Google Drive. A locally offline created document is simply copied to the Drive once connected. Conversely, any modified document on Drive while the Chromebook was offline is synced with the local file. This is great in case of multiple users sharing a same document or in case of modification with an other device, e.g. smartphone, laptop, etc.
Sharing documents
It is fascinating how easy it is to access documents in (Google) Drive form various devices; laptop, smartphone, Chromebook, tablet and have the modifications instantly updated.
This is great, I continued to write on a document with my smartphone on my way to the office, while riding a bus and later in the subway, ultimately finishing in the office on my laptop.
Printing with a Chromebook
Printing can be seen as a way of sharing and printing may be necessary sometime.
Refrain from pluging a printer to your Chromebook USB Port, printing won’t work. The Chromebook uses Google Cloud hosted apps, not the usual printer pilots to be installed.
Printing appears in the middle of the contextual menu (double fingers tap) and requires a web-declared printer to be linked to your Google account. The procedure about how to turn your local printer into a “Cloud printer” is explained, it goes easy and once the printer is known, printing is as easy as usual.
It’s a bit frightening at once, to open a local printer in such a way and fearing all the printings of the neighborhood will dry up your expensive toner or ink cartridges. After considering this unlikely risk, it’s a kind of magical mystery how the Chromebook can manage to send the printing files into the cloud and back onto the printer in the opposite corner of the house. Yet it works.
When the computer with witch the local printer was listed on Google's Cloud is off, the printer appears offline. It is seamingly possible to print nevertheless, and I assumed the file was spooled somewhere, waiting for the printer to go online again. Well, I used both my computer and printer, but no delayed and spooled document was printed from the cloud.
I understood later: to check and manage the tasks, printed or waiting, connect to https://www.google.com/cloudprint#jobs
Spooled files will be displayed, can be printed or deleted.
Disclaimer
The author has no link (other than being customer and user) to Samsung corporation nor Google, neither to any brands mentioned. The opinions in this article are author’s own. This return of experience is provided for free, with sole purpose of helping others to make their own opinion. It is no advertising nor recommendation for any of the mentioned brands or products.
You may read my ongoing Chromebook testing by >clicking here<
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