Zoho Writer review: A polished blend of Word and Google Docs

Our Verdict

Zoho Writer merges Microsoft Word'southward functionality and Google Docs' collaborative tools with a modern, lightweight and beautiful UI, however, its poor spelling and grammar checks are a let down.

For

Beautiful, distraction-complimentary UI
Uniform with popular formats
Offline desktop and mobile apps

Against

Unreliable spelling and grammer checks
DOCX and PDF formatting issues

Laptop Mag Verdict

Zoho Writer merges Microsoft Word's functionality and Google Docs' collaborative tools with a modern, lightweight and beautiful UI, all the same, its poor spelling and grammar checks are a let downward.

Pros

+
Beautiful, distraction-free UI
+
Compatible with popular formats
+
Offline desktop and mobile apps

Cons

-
Unreliable spelling and grammar checks
-
DOCX and PDF formatting issues

A practiced discussion processor isn't difficult to discover. Across the two market-dominating giants (Microsoft Word and Google Docs), at that place are tons of alternatives only waiting to be discovered. Finding a great word processor, still, requires a lilliputian more excavation, especially if y'all're looking to notice the perfect alloy of class and features that suits your needs.

Zoho Author is a role of the Zoho Workplace, an office-productivity platform that'south a tiny piece of the Zoho I business organisation suite. The latter has over forty dissimilar apps and services to help manage every level of business concern. Indian software developer Zoho, formerly AdventNet, launched desktop and cloud-based Zoho Writer in 2005. Zoho Writer has gone through several changes since then. It's now waiting to exist uncovered by those who seek an culling to Microsoft'south subscription model or a way to contrivance Google's prying eyes.

Entering its 16th year of development, Zoho Writer is a name I've encountered on the fringes of promising office suite tools, so I decided to take a closer wait at how well Zoho's offerings stand upward to the contest.

Zoho Writer pricing and packages

Zoho Writer is bachelor for free after creating a Zoho business relationship or logging in with a supported external account such equally Google or Twitter. Y'all can utilize the cloud-based software through the Zoho website, download a desktop version, or use the Zoho Writer mobile app. Bated from Author, your account offers access to ii additional apps: Show (a presentation software akin to PowerPoint) and Sail (an Excel equivalent). You'll be granted 5GB of cloud storage, which is a decent book for storing various types of documents.

Should you require more storage, Zoho offers its own subscription-based service: Zoho Workplace. With Zoho Workplace, y'all'll have the same access to the aforementioned three tools, but can increase your cloud-storage capacity (between 10GB and 100GB, depending on the package). Pricing starts with an annual charge of $3 per month for a standard plan. A professional person plan costs $6 per month. If you lot prefer to pay monthly, the standard plan volition net yous $4 while the professional person plan volition fix you back $vii.

If you feel the base 5GB of free storage isn't enough, only don't wish to pay a premium to upgrade, Zoho Author will also load and save files from OneDrive, Google Drive and other cloud-storage services with ease. This volition provide you an extra 5GB of storage via OneDrive or 15GB through Google Drive. If you're running the desktop or mobile-app version, y'all'll also have all the space from your own device to shop documents.

Zoho Writer blueprint and interface

Zoho Writer'south design can be summed up in 1 word: beautiful. I was a massive cheerleader of Google Physician's blank-bones modern elegance, but Zoho Author takes that design direction and runs with information technology. Upon opening Zoho Writer you're immediately met with i of the cleanest, simplest and fashionable interfaces I've ever seen in a word processor.

2 toolbars are initially all that is offered to you lot here, acting as a header and footer to the page. It seems spartan at first, but you lot'll quickly realize how Zoho's have on things is amend than the traditional affair.

The header is immediately familiar to any Google Docs user. Hither, you tin can title your certificate, favorite it and check on its save state. The right-paw side of the header bill of fare gives you access to sharing options, a settings carte du jour, your Zoho profile and document properties. The header also contains three tabs for switching your workspace into different modes. Etch is your principal setup for writing your document. Review is a collaboration-focused workspace that allows you to review comments and changes. Finally, Distribute is a workspace that adds a simple toolbar for publishing and printing your finalized work.

Instead of including dropdown menus for Edit, View, Insert and Format within the header, you'll simply find the File menu at that place. These other menus can instead be institute in an expanding sidebar on the left. Whether you're altering the pattern of your document or creating QR codes, nearly all of Zoho's features are neatly packed abroad into this sidebar. This method frees upwards screen space, keeping you distraction-free while working.

The footer is a standard characteristic for almost word processors. It helps y'all keep track of word count, page number and folio view. There are also a few options to enable the tracking of changes, showing keyboard shortcuts and opening the Zoho aid center. There are two noteworthy features found in the footer area: Zoho's writing suggestions, which keep track of the number of spelling and grammer errors, and a Night Mode option.

Most of your formatting and editing volition exist done with context-sensitive floating menus that appear when yous select elements inside the document. It makes everything inside reach every bit you piece of work, assuasive you to speedily make changes without navigating menus or looking abroad from the page. I did, unfortunately, have consistent bug with attempting to select all from right-clicking on the text; Zoho Writer would ofttimes choose to simply leave out unabridged chunks of text or pages from my option. It'south a modest gripe, but a frustrating i nonetheless.

Zoho Writer'southward impressive UI outdoes Google Docs' design. Information technology'south then ultra-modernistic, it may even be futuristic. It may even know how to employ those 3 shells in Demolition Man. Many software developers will endeavour to emulate the offerings from Microsoft or Google to requite users instant familiarity with their product. Zoho, on the other hand, carves its own identity into Writer while remaining simple and like shooting fish in a barrel-to-utilize.

Zoho Writer performance and compatibility

Due to its lightweight blueprint, loading Zoho Writer through the browser is a breeze. You can work on your document seconds after selecting it in the Zoho Writer workspace. Opening multi-page documents didn't hamper those speeds either, fifty-fifty with images attached. If you're happy with the performance you would get from Google Docs, Zoho Author will readily meet your standards.

I tested Zoho Writer with iii browsers: Chrome, Border and Opera. The operation was equally as fast and responsive in each. Oddly, the desktop version of Zoho Writer was sluggish, taking much longer to get into the workspace. Once the program was open, I had no issues in loading documents at a similar pace as its browser-based version. It's another minor hiccup in an otherwise smooth feel.

Zoho Writer's deject-based platform is compatible with all major browsers with desktop versions supporting all major operating systems. Zoho Writer fifty-fifty supports Linux — something Microsoft Word can't natively exercise. This means creating, collaborating and sharing your documents across virtually all platforms — mobile and desktop — is a seamless and stress-free experience.

Zoho Writer is compatible with the most common document files currently in use. Information technology can open and save in formats such equally Word, Open Document, RichText, Raw Text and HTML. Yous tin can also utilize PDF and DOCX files, but they reportedly suffer from formatting issues. This isn't uncommon for the software itself, either. As when I tried to load one of Zoho Writer'south own templates, I strangely encountered similar formatting loss. Zoho Writer doesn't back up the most all-encompassing list of supported file formats, but in terms of lining up to be uniform with most modernistic word processors, Zoho Writer has you covered.

Zoho Writer features

Attempting to requite its users the best of both worlds and a lilliputian bit actress, Zoho Writer features practically all of the most used functionality you would detect in Microsoft Give-and-take. It besides offers a familiar, Google Docs-like experience when it comes to collaboration.

At its cadre, Zoho Writer delivers a robust array of text formatting tools with styles, fonts, paragraphing and spacing all equally y'all would expect them to be. You can insert a lot of the mutual elements you would expect like images, tables, shapes, and text boxes. Even not-and so-common elements (e.1000. barcodes, QR codes, equations, formulas and charts) are a breeze to include cheers to the easy-to-use sidebar. You as well have access to creating forms and auto fields that populate your document automatically to speed up the process of including information such every bit dates, addresses, and names.

Y'all tin can likewise link Zoho Writer to diverse document signature services (or Zoho's own 'Sign' app) to include a digital signature within your documents. It's one of many footling features within Author that slowly adds up to giving you a library of options and alternatives, and it makes using a patchwork quilt of different software less of a headache.

Information technology's mostly standard fare for modern give-and-take processors, and when weighed against gold standard Microsoft Word, you can count the number of missing features on one hand. Zoho Writer is robust in its offerings and has the versatility to create what you lot want, and how y'all want it.

Zoho Author also features co-authoring for up to fifty users at a time. This is half of what's bachelor to users of Word or Google Docs, only 50 is still a reasonable limit of real-time contributors. Y'all tin can share your document via a link or email. Everyone can collaborate on the document with ease. You can even chat with each other in the same window.

You can approve changes or read comments created by other users inside the review workplace. This keeps your compose workspace clutter-complimentary and lets y'all concentrate on writing with minimal distraction. Though for a quick reference, simply clicking on the comments or amendments will bring yous directly to a popup asking y'all if yous'd like to resolve, approve or reject whatever edits or comments made. You can besides block out sure sections of your certificate from view on an private footing, only assuasive people to see what you desire them to meet. This is dandy for privacy in collaborating on a certificate containing sensitive data. A Zoho account isn't required for collaboration. Co-authors can connect to the document using a variety of accounts such as Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and even Yahoo.

Zoho Writer'southward AI assistant

Information technology was all lining upwards every bit an amazing offering from Zoho until it came to re-reading my documents and checking for any spelling and grammatical errors. As you lot work, Zoho's AI assistant Zia picks up spelling and grammer mistakes. Zia scans for improper word choices, run-on sentences, poor phrased sentences, informal writing, overuse of adverbs and writing clichés. Then, it volition calculate a readability score and make suggestions on how to meliorate your certificate. In a sense, Zia is Zoho's congenital-in Grammarly Premium-like service. The only problem is that information technology'southward not very skillful. In fact, it'south pretty bad.

Zia didn't observe common wrinkle mistakes (e.g. "its" in an improper grammatical context). It didn't always discover if I had accidentally repeated a word while typing, nor did it pick upward on words that required hyphenating. Some of Zia's grammatical corrections led to ungrammatical results. I even tested Zia's power to detect non-inclusive language to investigate whether it tin pick up on gender stereotypes in my writing. But no matter what I typed, Zia couldn't find a unmarried issue.

I loaded the same $.25 of text into Grammarly to see how Zia matched upward. I wasn't surprised to detect the results were overwhelmingly unlike. Where Zia had detected only five spelling mistakes and nine grammatical errors, Grammarly had detected far more. I even tested some examples of perfectly worded paragraphs in Zoho, but Zia occasionally made unnecessary corrections.

Overall, Zia proved to be unreliable when information technology came to proofreading whatsoever piece of work created inside Zoho Writer. If it wasn't for the fact that spelling and grammar are so fundamentally of import in writing, this might not be so much of an issue. Merely they are essential. Zoho Writer didn't only stumble at the final hurdle — it slammed into it at top speed and confront planted onto the basis. Having to rely on an external app to perform grammar and spelling checks may not be the end of the world, only it does detract enough to sully an otherwise fantastic experience.

Bottom Line

My fourth dimension with Zoho Writer was an enjoyable one at first. It had everything I needed in a word processor and it looked not bad while delivering them. It'due south a supremely polished user experience, taking notes from polished apps similar Google Docs and Word and calculation its own gleam with animated transitions and stunning modern blueprint.

While Zoho Writer looks impressive and gives me all the formatting I crave, Zoho's built-in spelling and grammar AI didn't deliver. At times, it even hampered my writing with more mistakes. Ask whatsoever of Laptop's talented editors, my grammer is bad enough on its own. The last affair they need is for me to be teamed-up with a pidgin-English language HAL 9000. Because of Zia, I had to rely on external software to proofread my work. And and then, regardless of the polish applied to Zoho Writer, I can't reliably use it every bit my primary word processor — only human is it pretty!