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Not just operate well enough, but operate better. All their work in one place, up on the web. Easy team-working. Easy sharing with the customer. Docs still has

Not just operate well enough, but operate better. All their work in one place, up on the web. Easy team-working. Easy sharing with the customer. Docs still has ties to paper, though. The Google product that fits this model the best is Wave.

gaius 17y ago
Just had a look at Google Docs and it's not immediately clear to me how it manages references (e.g. "see figure x", "section s", "page n") where it keeps track of all the numbering for you as you insert new figures etc. Word has done this forever. It's a pretty key feature for anyone working on non-trivial documents.
- JulianMorrison 17y ago
  Surely the modern equivalent is the hyperlink?
  - gaius 17y ago
    "Click here" all over the place is very much not the same as "see figure X".
    - JulianMorrison 17y ago
      Hyperlinking "click here" is terrible form. Just work the link into a sentence by putting it over a descriptive phrase like "our revenue last quarter", or even (more explicitly) "the graph of our revenue last quarter".
      - gaius 17y ago
        And that works when you print it how? (If you're thinking "it doesn't matter" then you've not understood why Google Docs isn't ready for the typical business)
        JulianMorrison 17y ago
        I've seen print transformations of hyperlinks that replace them with numbered footnotes. A sufficiently clever one could use its own pagination and put in "[1] see section X page Y". But honestly that's an obsolete format. If your business can't cope without, use Word. But it ought to be able to. What use is paper nowadays? Who prints stuff out?
        gaius 17y ago
        What people "ought" to do and what they do do are often very different, and you can either pretend that isn't true or you can try to understand it and act accordingly.
        JulianMorrison 17y ago
        I asked "who uses it", because I can't offhand think of anyone who has to. OK, there are the bosses who can't cope with anything invented since the 1980s and are too high placed to be told to suck it up. There are people in countries too backward to expect a reliable internet connection. And perhaps, some documents required by law? I don't know. "Who uses it" is the question Google should be asking themselves - so they can turn their considerable market and political power towards obsoleting those uses.

gaius 17y ago

Just had a look at Google Docs and it's not immediately clear to me how it manages references (e.g. "see figure x", "section s", "page n") where it keeps track of all the numbering for you as you insert new figures etc. Word has done this forever. It's a pretty key feature for anyone working on non-trivial documents.

JulianMorrison 17y ago
Surely the modern equivalent is the hyperlink?
- gaius 17y ago
  "Click here" all over the place is very much not the same as "see figure X".
  - JulianMorrison 17y ago
    Hyperlinking "click here" is terrible form. Just work the link into a sentence by putting it over a descriptive phrase like "our revenue last quarter", or even (more explicitly) "the graph of our revenue last quarter".
    - gaius 17y ago
      And that works when you print it how? (If you're thinking "it doesn't matter" then you've not understood why Google Docs isn't ready for the typical business)
      - JulianMorrison 17y ago
        I've seen print transformations of hyperlinks that replace them with numbered footnotes. A sufficiently clever one could use its own pagination and put in "[1] see section X page Y". But honestly that's an obsolete format. If your business can't cope without, use Word. But it ought to be able to. What use is paper nowadays? Who prints stuff out?
        gaius 17y ago
        What people "ought" to do and what they do do are often very different, and you can either pretend that isn't true or you can try to understand it and act accordingly.
        JulianMorrison 17y ago
        I asked "who uses it", because I can't offhand think of anyone who has to. OK, there are the bosses who can't cope with anything invented since the 1980s and are too high placed to be told to suck it up. There are people in countries too backward to expect a reliable internet connection. And perhaps, some documents required by law? I don't know. "Who uses it" is the question Google should be asking themselves - so they can turn their considerable market and political power towards obsoleting those uses.