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Frankly, Docs, Sheets, and Slides are nowhere even close to Word, Excel, and Powerpoint in terms of feature set and usability. Sheets especially, but even in D

Frankly, Docs, Sheets, and Slides are nowhere even close to Word, Excel, and Powerpoint in terms of feature set and usability. Sheets especially, but even in Docs and Slides I'll run into things I can't do. Where the G-Suite apps really shine, though, is in collaboration. If I'm working by myself on something, I'll likely do it in Office just because that's where I'm most comfortable. But literally everything I write for work happens in G-Suite (mostly Docs, occasionally Slides), because Google makes simultaneous, real-time collaboration easy and seamless. That's something Office is only just starting to figure out (and too late).

closeparen 9y ago
Collaboration also goes beyond collaborating to produce the document. My company makes decisions in the comments of Google Doc proposals.
- DamnYuppie 9y ago
  Office has a robust commenting and review feature set as well.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Does it provide a function to merge the comments from tens of people’s individually annotated email attachments? If not, not really comparable.
Someone1234 9y ago
Office 365 is though. - Microsoft Teams is a [bad] Slack clone. - Microsoft Planner is a [bad] Trello clone. - Outlook.com instead of the [bad] Outlook Desktop Application - Sharepoint online for a CRM - OneNote online for a shared scratchpad. The offline versions of Excel, Word, and Power Point have no online rivals but for collaboration Office 365 is one to watch. I'd even argue it has pulled ahead of Gsuite in the last year.
- someoneelse987 9y ago
  I agree with your critique. This is just a hunch but I don't think they are ahead: - Outlook.com must be one of the worst web apps there is. Compared to Gmail it's just plain awful. - Sharepoint is decidedly one of the worst pieces of software ever built, that is if you are a developer. If you are an editor/content manager then it is possible it's just fine.
  - magnusdeus123 9y ago
    I use Outlook.com as my main email provider. And I'm managing to convince people to move off've Gmail onto it because of it's streamlined interface. What do you find wrong in it?
    - someoneelse987 9y ago
      It might just be a matter of preference but to me Outlook.com is an attempt to webify Outlook The Desktop Client, which was horrible to start with. But they made it worse than the desktop app. An example: while searching in your Outlook.com "client" it enters a new state, the search state. When you are done searching there is a left arrow in the navigation panel which you can click to go back to the "normal" state of things. Awkward. I'm a longtime Windows user, familiar with Microsoft user interfaces, but to me there is nothing to love about Outlook.com.
    - bassman9000 9y ago
      It's deliberately slow in Linux (applies to all Office products) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13932226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13932226 Issue still happens to me: easy to test switching agents.
      - KyeRussell 9y ago
        That’s interesting, especially as that’s not what the link you’ve kindly referenced says. Congratulations on being able to change the user agent - Microsoft is not you and has to support decisions it makes. I can see why there’d be little cause for them to perform Linux testing given the small market share. So, if you were Microsoft - and not you - would you rather potentially break the experience for Linux users, or not enable what appears to be OS/browser specific code that speeds up the experience? Again, calling this a deliberate slowdown is extremely misleading.
programbreeding 9y ago
I haven't used G-Suite in years so I can't really compare it, but I use Excel online (via Office 365) to collaborate in real-time on documents with other employees all the time and it works great.
- sheetjs 9y ago
  For most uses, Docs and Sheets "work". It is extremely easy to create a basic collaborative table or document. So long as you aren't stressing the sync features, everyone is on the same page. Where G-Suite suffers is in the random features that a small segment of power users swear by. The keyboard shortcuts aren't the same as what people learned in Word/Excel. There are many incompatibilities and rendering issues with the Excel and Word formats. But these concerns apply mostly to advanced users; for basic documents, letters, lists, and tables, G-Suite in 2018 works well
  - zolthrowaway 9y ago
    To add to this, WordML is super powerful. Modern .docx files are basically just big zip files. You can easily edit this and do some crazy things and MS Word will be pretty good about reflecting this in the editor. G-Docs can have some issues with modified WordML. You can do some of these things in open formats like .odt and G-Docs will be better about this. However, there are still problems with things like pagination. So overall, I think Docs is where you want to be unless you have some super niche use case. I don't have enough experience trying to do crazy things with Sheets to have an opinion on it vs Excel though.
ams6110 9y ago
You're right about the feature set. But, Google's products are good enough for most users. The justification for all the bloat in MS Office was always "people only use 20% of the features but each person's 20% is different." Well Google actually did a pretty good job of identifying the features that most people use. I hardly ever open up MS Office anymore (it isn't even installed on my main work computer).
chasedehan 9y ago
My home computers are all linux and GSuite is perfect for almost everything I do. I could see the issue with excel for many people in accounting/finance/etc, but sheets is more than enough for things I do as I don't do anything complex in a spreadsheet. At work I am forced to use windows and have to use Office for many tasks (including SharePoint - talk about a terrible product) and aren't allowed to use GSuite. If I had a choice, I would make the same decision as Airbus
ebikelaw 9y ago
"Docs ... nowhere even close to Word ... in terms of feature set ... really shine, though, is in collaboration." Contradiction. If your key feature is collaboration, GSuite is decades ahead of Office.
throwaway84742 9y ago
For anything other than Excel, I actually vastly prefer Google stuff. Collaboration features and not having to worry about files outweigh the (small) downsides for me by quite a margin. Sheets is a bit of a laggard, but it’ll get there in another couple of years.

closeparen 9y ago

Collaboration also goes beyond collaborating to produce the document. My company makes decisions in the comments of Google Doc proposals.

DamnYuppie 9y ago
Office has a robust commenting and review feature set as well.
- closeparen 9y ago
  Does it provide a function to merge the comments from tens of people’s individually annotated email attachments? If not, not really comparable.

Someone1234 9y ago

Office 365 is though. - Microsoft Teams is a [bad] Slack clone. - Microsoft Planner is a [bad] Trello clone. - Outlook.com instead of the [bad] Outlook Desktop Application - Sharepoint online for a CRM - OneNote online for a shared scratchpad. The offline versions of Excel, Word, and Power Point have no online rivals but for collaboration Office 365 is one to watch. I'd even argue it has pulled ahead of Gsuite in the last year.

someoneelse987 9y ago
I agree with your critique. This is just a hunch but I don't think they are ahead: - Outlook.com must be one of the worst web apps there is. Compared to Gmail it's just plain awful. - Sharepoint is decidedly one of the worst pieces of software ever built, that is if you are a developer. If you are an editor/content manager then it is possible it's just fine.
- magnusdeus123 9y ago
  I use Outlook.com as my main email provider. And I'm managing to convince people to move off've Gmail onto it because of it's streamlined interface. What do you find wrong in it?
  - someoneelse987 9y ago
    It might just be a matter of preference but to me Outlook.com is an attempt to webify Outlook The Desktop Client, which was horrible to start with. But they made it worse than the desktop app. An example: while searching in your Outlook.com "client" it enters a new state, the search state. When you are done searching there is a left arrow in the navigation panel which you can click to go back to the "normal" state of things. Awkward. I'm a longtime Windows user, familiar with Microsoft user interfaces, but to me there is nothing to love about Outlook.com.
  - bassman9000 9y ago
    It's deliberately slow in Linux (applies to all Office products) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13932226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13932226 Issue still happens to me: easy to test switching agents.
    - KyeRussell 9y ago
      That’s interesting, especially as that’s not what the link you’ve kindly referenced says. Congratulations on being able to change the user agent - Microsoft is not you and has to support decisions it makes. I can see why there’d be little cause for them to perform Linux testing given the small market share. So, if you were Microsoft - and not you - would you rather potentially break the experience for Linux users, or not enable what appears to be OS/browser specific code that speeds up the experience? Again, calling this a deliberate slowdown is extremely misleading.

programbreeding 9y ago

I haven't used G-Suite in years so I can't really compare it, but I use Excel online (via Office 365) to collaborate in real-time on documents with other employees all the time and it works great.

sheetjs 9y ago
For most uses, Docs and Sheets "work". It is extremely easy to create a basic collaborative table or document. So long as you aren't stressing the sync features, everyone is on the same page. Where G-Suite suffers is in the random features that a small segment of power users swear by. The keyboard shortcuts aren't the same as what people learned in Word/Excel. There are many incompatibilities and rendering issues with the Excel and Word formats. But these concerns apply mostly to advanced users; for basic documents, letters, lists, and tables, G-Suite in 2018 works well
- zolthrowaway 9y ago
  To add to this, WordML is super powerful. Modern .docx files are basically just big zip files. You can easily edit this and do some crazy things and MS Word will be pretty good about reflecting this in the editor. G-Docs can have some issues with modified WordML. You can do some of these things in open formats like .odt and G-Docs will be better about this. However, there are still problems with things like pagination. So overall, I think Docs is where you want to be unless you have some super niche use case. I don't have enough experience trying to do crazy things with Sheets to have an opinion on it vs Excel though.

ams6110 9y ago

You're right about the feature set. But, Google's products are good enough for most users. The justification for all the bloat in MS Office was always "people only use 20% of the features but each person's 20% is different." Well Google actually did a pretty good job of identifying the features that most people use. I hardly ever open up MS Office anymore (it isn't even installed on my main work computer).

chasedehan 9y ago

My home computers are all linux and GSuite is perfect for almost everything I do. I could see the issue with excel for many people in accounting/finance/etc, but sheets is more than enough for things I do as I don't do anything complex in a spreadsheet. At work I am forced to use windows and have to use Office for many tasks (including SharePoint - talk about a terrible product) and aren't allowed to use GSuite. If I had a choice, I would make the same decision as Airbus

ebikelaw 9y ago

"Docs ... nowhere even close to Word ... in terms of feature set ... really shine, though, is in collaboration." Contradiction. If your key feature is collaboration, GSuite is decades ahead of Office.

throwaway84742 9y ago

For anything other than Excel, I actually vastly prefer Google stuff. Collaboration features and not having to worry about files outweigh the (small) downsides for me by quite a margin. Sheets is a bit of a laggard, but it’ll get there in another couple of years.