I posted earlier today about Writely, and said that I thought it was better than Zoho Writer, a competitor. Well, someone from Zoho emailed me, asking how I thought Zoho Writer could be improved, and why I thought it was not as good as Writely. I sent a rather long email back, mainly because I thought that if they had bothered to email, I should bother to be as helpful as I could. After all, I had been using their free product! I have posted the email below.

Hi,

Overall, Zoho Writer is an excellent product. It certainly has a lot going for it, and when I say Writely is better than it, it is not by a long way at all. I have had a good look at Zoho Writer and Writely, and have found some areas in which Zoho Writer is weaker (and some where Writely is weaker).

A recent problem I had with Zoho Writer was when I was attempting to use a table in document. I inserted the table correctly (2 columns, 4 rows), but when I entered values into the cells the column widths adjusted unexpectedly, with the left column becoming wider than the right when there were more characters in the left column, even if there was no lack of space. Whilst this may be a feature, it behaves in a very different way from a user expects it to, as the vast majority of your users will be familiar with Microsoft Word.

A second problem is that when exporting, for example to a word document, changes made since the last save are not included in the exported document. Although there is an obvious workaround, for a user not particularly tech-savvy it may not occur what has happened, and thus they may find it frustrating. Although I worked out what had happened, I also found it frustrating as I had to save and then re-download the file.

A third possible weakness is the fact that when a search is performed, in some circumstances several versions of a document can be returned as results. This happens (I think) when the name of a document has been changed. For example, I started a document named ‘Maui’, worked on it for a while, and then changed the name to ‘Maui Trip’. I did not save ‘Maui’ separately from ‘Maui Trip’, and on the sidebar in normal view (ie. when no search has been performed) no document called ‘Maui’ is visible, only ‘Maui Trip’. However, when I perform a search with search string ‘Maui’, three results are produced; one of the actual saved document ‘Maui Trip’, and two auto-saves of the ‘Maui’ document. I understand this may well be a feature, and if it is, then it is potentially extremely useful. However, if it is a feature to return auto-saves as search results, it would be useful:

a) for clarification to indicate some sort of version numbers, so that the chronology of the autosaves is clear, and
b) to rename the autosaves to the name of the eventual file, then showing in their document history their previous names.

Another feature I would like is some sort of file system, with folders, although the need for this is reduced with the excellent search functionality. It would certainly make users used to word proccessing offline more comfortable, as folders are used heavily in that scenario.

Zoho Writer’s strength is its GUI. It certainly looks better than Writely’s, and I love the tabbed interface. All in all, it is an excellent product. I should also add that I am very impressed that you have taken the trouble to email me to find out how I think your product could be improved, hence I have taken the time to provide what I hope is useful feedback. I have tried to be as clear and specific as I can, but if I can be of any more help, feel free to email me.

Thanks,

Huw