Google Docs is Google's online word processor that allows you to create, edit, and share documents online.

The easiest way to describe Google Docs is that it’s an online alternative to Microsoft word. It has a similar layout and a lot of the same features, although there are a lot fewer tools available to you. That’s mostly because unlike Microsoft Word, Google Docs is free (which is a big plus in our books). Google Docs is one of the many web-based products offered by Google, which includes Google Sheets (Excel), Google Slides (Powerpoint), Google Forms, and more.

While Microsoft is the most popular of these products and has been for a long time, Google is starting to make up ground and lots of people have made the switch.

Google Docs is especially useful for light users or people that only need access to the basic features of a word processor. It has a simple interface, it makes it much more simple to share files, and it’s really easy to access files from different devices. If you don’t need a lot of storage space, then Google Docs is a very good solution.

It’s Free

We mentioned it before, but one of the biggest benefits of Google Docs is that it’s free a.k.a. It costs nothing. For a lot of people it doesn’t make sense to pay for a word processor, especially if you only use it sparingly.

You can get to your documents anywhere, any time.

Being web-based means you can access Google Docs from any device that is connected to the internet - there's even a mobile app for Android and iOS. This is especially convenient for someone who doesn’t have their own computer. You can access your files on any device, including a friend's computer, a work computer, or on your mobile.

If you’re out and about you can take notes from your phone and then finalise them when you get back to a computer.

Or perhaps you were working on a document on a computer at your local LINC and need access to it on another computer or even at a friend’s place. If so, Google Docs is perfect.

You’ll never lose hours of work (thanks to auto save)

One of the best features of Google Docs is that you never have to worry about losing your work. Everything is saved automatically as you type, which is lifesaver for a lot of us.

You can still track changes and go back and access previous versions of your document, but you never lose hours of work because your computer crashed or you forgot to hit save.

It’s really easy to share documents and work on them with friends or colleagues

Google Docs was one of the first word processors to offer shared online document editing and today it is the biggest (no surprises).

Google has made it incredibly easy to share documents across platforms and work on them together in real-time from a browser window. This is great if you’re planning or writing something with someone in another location and don’t want to be passing the file back and forth.

In fact, you can even suggest changes and leave comments on particular portions - a great way to pass on feedback or remarks without needing to awkwardly explain exactly where in the document you’re referring to.

It’s been mentioned a few times, but Google Docs is a web-based application, which means it can be accessed on (almost) any device that has an internet browser. Honestly, it’s really simple. You can even search for ‘Google Docs’ and it will let you access it via this link: https://docs.google.com/.

It is also available as a mobile app on Android and iOS and as a desktop application on Google's Chrome OS.

Google Docs supports opening and saving documents in many formats, including Microsoft Word (.docx), OpenDocument Format (.odt), Rich Text Format (.rtf) and also allows exporting as a PDF.

This means if you get sent a document created in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) you will be able to open it in Google Docs and vice versa.

So basically, anyone can access Google Docs.

If all of the benefits we’ve laid out for Google Docs sound useful we suggest checking it out and becoming familiar with the platform. As we’ve explained it’s one of the best online word processors out there. It’s easy to set up, it’s free and it’s especially great for people who only need to use it occasionally. If you’re needing to create, edit, share and collaborate on files then there aren’t many (if any) options better than Google Docs.