1d ago

France and Germany, in joint collaboration, have developed a Google Docs alternative - and its awesome! (Netherlands are currently onboarded)

mastodon.social Erik Jonker (@ErikJonker@mastodon.social)

Interesting: Docs is the result of a joint effort lead by the French 🇫🇷🥖(DINUM) and German 🇩🇪🥨 governments (ZenDiS). We are always looking for new public partners (we are currently onboarding the Netherlands 🇳🇱🧀). Feel free to reach out if you are interested in using or contributing to docs...

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126 comments

I got a kick out of Google Docs alternative since it is trying to be AnyType, AFFiNE, AppFlowy, etc and none of those editors are stupid enough to claim to be Google Docs alternatives nor are they a bloated mess. Proof is in the pudding though... Try putting 1 inch margins on a page & add tab stops with this & printing it out where you get the same results.. oh wait, you can't... Cause it isn't a Google Docs alternative.
- None of those tools are editors, right? They all try to be a notion alternative, which is also not an editor. There is basically 0 focus on typesetting.
  
  That is what I'm saying this editor is trying to be Notion, not Google Docs.
  
  Yes, but who said otherwise then?
  Oh OP made it up. Nvm. They write themselves that it is a notion alternative.
- I disagree. There's Microsoft Office, and there's everything else. Google is in that second bucket.
  
  There's Libre office for those who like freedom and open source tech.
  
  Depends on who you hang with. Pretty much all businesses at this point do collaboration either with Office 365 or with Google Docs, and the same in Academia. Usually it’s a mix of both.
- Google docs is trash.
  
  That is fine to have that opinion but it is irrelevant to the discussion since no where did I praise Google Docs. I'm just explaining the difference between this & and editor that does descent typesetting.
  
  And an editor that does a decent job is not google docs.
  It is embarassing that MS has dominated this for more than 30 years and Google, despite its infinite wealth, hasn't made a decent office app.
  
  I wholeheartedly agree with this opinion. Google Docs has done very little to innovate. The fact that you're still limited to like 6 built-in styles & lack of integrated syntax highlighting is ridiculous.
  
  Google Docs has done very little to innovate.
  The place where I see Google Docs being far superior to any other product I've run into is collaborative work. Having multiple people writing in the same doc at the simultaneously is a train wreck in most products Office365 included. In other products there's a good chance you'll have a version conflict and someone's changes will be lost. Google docs handles that with ease.
  
  I have been using collaboration with Microsoft products for decades with little issue. I first started in college in 2006 with Onenote and it worked well even then. googol is garbage.
  
  I have been using collaboration with Microsoft products for decades with little issue.
  You've had 60+ people all in a single Excel spreadsheet on Sharepoint all making changes at the exact same moment and never once had a issue of a document lock or file corruption? Its okay to have a preference for one product over the other, but when you're blinded by brand loyalty where you can see no wrong with your preferred product, it makes you lose credibility.
  
  Just chipping in here but I gather 60 concurrent editors is pushing what most people have experienced - so thanks for your perspective!
  Most I've dealt with is about 5 (in Excell) - and the actual changes were not really being made frequently or by all parties. The worst part was the project manager altering the view and fucking up everyone else's perspective (even though each had their own?!) - Classic PM stuff.
  Does Sheets and the rest of the Google suite handle this well?
  
  Does Sheets and the rest of the Google suite handle this well?
  It does.
  I'll also be the first to say that many of these use cases should not be using a spreadsheet for the kind of work that is occurring and a database is much more appropriate, but we know "should" rarely is present in modern companies or enterprises.

126 comments