Having software like Microsoft Office is nice, but what if you are away from your regular computer? You can access and work on your documents wherever you are in a browser using the Zoho Online Office Suite.
What You Get With Zoho
You get access to a wonderful set of productivity/collaboration apps and the business apps. With a free account there is a limitation on numbers (users, etc.) for the business apps but for the regular everyday person this can still be very useful.
Signing Up For Zoho
Signing up for an account is easy to do...you only need to provide a user name, e-mail address, and password.
Or if you prefer you can use a Federated Sign In using the services shown here.
Once you have finished signing up for your new account you will be presented with the following message. At this point you could go ahead and continue signing into your new account but it would be better to take care of the verification e-mail first (recommended).
When you click on the link in the verification e-mail you will be asked for your new password. Once that is taken care of then you are ready to start exploring and using Zoho.
This is the page that you will see after signing in (you might see the version shown in the first screenshot above). You can use the tabbed interface at the top to set up your profile, add a user pic, and adjust settings such as language & time zone.
On the right side of the page shown above there will be a scrollable list of apps to choose from if you want to go ahead and get started with the apps themselves.
A Look At Some Of Zoho's Services
Since Zoho has many wonderful services to use, we will just highlight a few starting with the one app that everyone is most likely use...Writer. You get a nice set of formatting and editing tools to work with and a convenient sectional setup on the left side. You can access a list of your documents, shared documents, tag folders, templates, and the trash bin (to easily recover any deleted documents).
The Show app opens up with a slightly different setup from the other services. You can use the tools on the left side to start working on a presentation immediately or see an overview of how Show works.
If you save bits of useful information, links, and images while browsing then Zoho Notebook will definitely be useful to you. You can add images, audio, video, html, and other items to your notes using the tools on the left.
Note: See our article about the Zoho Notebook Helper extension for Firefox here.
You also receive a brand new e-mail account in addition to all of the Zoho services that you have access to.
Store up to 1 GB worth of documents online (free account level) with the option to upgrade if you want/need more storage space. You can monitor your account's status using the Docs app.
Interested in creating a wiki? All that you need to do is choose a name, set the permissions, and pick a theme.
Navigating between apps is easy to do using the Switch to Menu at the top of the webpage.
Open and run as many apps as needed in your favorite browser without a taskbar full of separate windows.
Conclusion
The Zoho Online Suite provides a useful set of tools for you to access wherever you may be working. Work on your documents without the stress of wondering what software may or may not be available to use on a particular computer's hard-drive.
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