In Q4 2007 Adobe released its own web-based word processor called Buzzword, which it acquired when it bought Virtual Ubiquity. With the announcement that AIR is coming out of beta today, it seems likely that Buzzword will assume a new prominence in the online productivity war, based on the assumption that it will soon leverage the offline power of AIR to bring Buzzword to the desktop.
But how does Buzzword stack up against its competitors? First of all let me say that this is by far the nicest looking word processor on the web. The interface is very slick, and everything behaves much more like a proper desktop app than a kludgey web site/application hybrid. The really important thing, though, is the feature set. I've taken Karim's list of problems with Google Docs as the basis for a comparison.
Karim writes:
you can't Ctrl-C copy, Ctrl-V PASTE an image into a document
Does this work in Buzzword? Well, the familiar keyboard shortcuts certainly work fine with text (and, by the way, the text in this app looks just beautiful), but when I tried to paste an image:
I have a strong feeling that this will be fixed when Buzzword integrates with AIR, but for the moment it looks like we're stuck with the old 'insert' standby.
Karim writes:
Now proportionally resize the image so it retains its aspect ratio. Oh, that's right, you can't. Now crop the image. Oh that's right, you can't.
Well, proportionally resizing is handled absolutely beautifully, and works better than many desktop applications I've used. But sadly cropping is still no go.
Karim writes:Now insert a table. Now grab the edge of a column and resize the column. Oh wait, you can't. Now delete one of the columns. Oh wait, you can't.
Well, this is an area where Buzzword really shines. Resizing cells is as slick as resizing images, and deleting them is a snap with the contextual menu.
Karim writes:Now type some text and select it. Choose one of the fonts on your computer instead of the six fonts Google licensed from Microsoft. Oh wait, you can't. Create a new paragraph style. Oh wait, you can't. Change the font color and background on some text. Now copy that formatting to another paragraph. Oh wait, you can't.
Fonts are limited here, and they're also rather obscure. Although I quite like some of the choices on offer, the lack of standard fonts like Arial and Times is going to create major problems for some users. We can only hope that with the AIR integration comes integration with desktop fonts.
It's another disappointment with Paragraph styles, which are non-existent (although frankly I never use them anyway), but it should be noted that changing text colour and background colour is easy enough, and again, the interface is beautiful.Karim writes:
Now do a find and replace on some text. Hmmm, why is that feature marked as "experimental?" Oh, because you don't get to choose which instances get replaced, it just replaces all of them. And there's no way to undo afterwards.
Find and replace works perfectly in Buzzword. A simple Cmd-F (or Ctrl-F for Windows folk) brings up a nice search bar (that somehow overrides Safari's inbuilt search function) that allows you to choose to replace whatever you want without forcing you to replace things you want to keep. And a simple Cmd-Z is all that's needed to undo.
So, some hits and some misses for Buzzword. But it's definitely moving in the right direction. It also has some interesting collaborative and commenting features, but the thing that really sets it apart is its look and feel, which is outstanding.
I look forward to seeing what Adobe can do when this is released on the AIR platform. Regardless of what might be lacking at the moment, it seems certain that Adobe is becoming a very serious player in this area, and Google and Microsoft would do well to learn some lessons from what they are putting out.
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4 comments:
Nice write-up on Adobe Buzzword. One thing we can assume is that we're in the early stages in the development of full-fledged online productivity solutions. Which basically means that it's very hard to know what will come out of this movement. Not only in terms of winners but in terms of actual use. Will we all start working online most of the time or will we limit our online work to collaboration? Will online apps add features not present in offline ones or will they remain "replacements" for well-known app categories? Will these online apps become really mainstream or will they remain niche products?
I really like Buzzword's interface. Not only is it pretty but it's very functional. More so than most other online apps. And, as unimportant as it sounds, I'm quite impressed with the list management features. Not very powerful but surprisingly smart. Certainly smarter than Microsoft Word's list support.
I have (in my head and in some notes I've taken) feature wishlists for these online/offline productivity apps. Maybe there's a place for us (users) to enumerate features we'd like so that somebody, somewhere, will listen?
The buzzword team would love to see suggestions from any and all comers on how to improve their project. See our discussion forums.
Buzzword seems like a pretty decent tool overall, but you skip over paragraph styles pretty easily, which I find alarming. Using structured styles (both paragraph and inline) marks the difference between a document that is easy to reformat, machine index, and adapt to other purposes, and a document that is just a mishmash of formatting goo. That's why semantic html and css are A Good Thing.
I won't have any use for an online word processor until someone allows me to encode decent semantic information.
enkerli: I agree that we are certainly in the early stages. As to whether online or offline apps will ultimately predominate, I think eventually we will not think about this distinction. Products like Adobe AIR should make the line between these two paradigms invisible. All word processors (including Word) will operate online and offline, but the transition between the two will be seamless, and we won't notice (if it's designed right).
an: excellent point about semantics; I hadn't thought about it like that. Definitely agree that this is important. See my post about the semantic web if you're interested: http://tomscrace.blogspot.com/2008/02/twine-gets-new-injection-of-capital.html
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