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Syncplicity Integrates Zoho
Syncplicity, a document synchronization tool integrated Zoho into their application recently. This Sync tool lets you synchronize your documents from your desktop (PC-only currently) to their web application.
If you have Syncplicity installed on your computer, you can right-click on a document on your desktop and choose the ‘Edit in Zoho’ option for editing your document. This opens up a window with the Zoho document editor. When the ‘Save’ button is hit in Zoho editor, it saves the file to your local folder and also your Syncplicity account, thus keeping your document in sync. This works with Zoho Writer & Zoho Sheet Apps now with Zoho Show to follow.
Similar editing option is also available in their online application to edit documents online. After you save the changes, the documents are saved on their servers.
And here’s a nice screencast done by the Syncplicity team, demonstrating the integration.
We’d like to thank Syncplicity for integrating Zoho. Our other API Partners are here. If you have integrated Zoho into your application, do let us know so that we can profile you here and list you as a partner in our partners page.
Zoho for iPhone - Redesigned
We just rolled out a new design for Zoho on iPhone. You can play with it @ mobile.zoho.com (or iZoho.com). The new design introduces a tabbed interface for navigation between Zoho Apps. Currently, Zoho Writer, Sheet, Show & Creator are supported in this new interface. We plan to add more apps and more functionality to this new version.
Once you login, the Zoho tab shows the recent 5 documents from each Zoho app. You’ll be able to view your personal and shared documents under the respective application tabs.
We are looking forward to your feedback on this new redesign.
Zoho Writer : Import from Google Docs & Equation Editor (LaTeX) support
Today’s Zoho Writer update introduces three key functionalities
- Import Documents from Google Docs to Zoho Writer
- Equation Editor
- LaTeX Export
1. Import Documents from Google Docs to Zoho Writer
After we accepted Google and Yahoo! sign-in to Zoho (and Google Apps accounts sign-in), we were asked to implement import capability to Zoho. We have added this feature in this update. And now you can import your Google Docs into Zoho Writer. Here are the steps :
- Login to your Google Docs account & choose the documents that you need to export to Zoho
- Click on More actions -> Save as HTML (zipped) to your desktop
- In Zoho Writer, click on Import -> Import Google Docs, select the zipped file path and click Import
- All the Google Docs documents in the zip file will be imported into your Zoho Writer account & will be displayed in the left panel
We certainly don’t want to trap your information in Zoho. We will soon provide a mass Export option to take your documents to other services.
2. Equation Editor
As you may know, a significant % of our users are students. We got a lot of requests from this user segment to build an Equation Editor into Zoho Writer. And Zoho Writer has it now.
You’ll see a new Equation Editor icon (last one in the second row of the toolbar) which brings up a simple UI to create your equations. If you are a LaTeX guru, type your equation away and we automatically generate an image of the equation on the right. If you are not a LaTeX expert (like me), you can simply select the equation symbols with your mouse and we automatically build the equation for you. Once done, the equation image is inserted into your document.
After you insert your equation, if you want to make any changes to it, right click on the image and select Edit Equation.
3. LaTeX Export
As you see in the above slide show, we support LaTeX, the document markup language widely used by mathematicians, scientists, engineers and scholars in academia. We have a new option in Zoho Writer under Export, to save such files involving equations in LaTeX format as well.
Try the new features in Zoho Writer now & we will be glad knowing your comments.
Baihui Distributes Zoho Apps in China
We are happy to announce a new distribution partner in China - Baihui, a subsidiary of PC Stars - the largest Chinese online distributor with more than 2300 Resellers and over 1000 System Integrators.
With this partnership, Baihui hosts Zoho Applications in China for distribution in China (ofcourse, in Chinese language). These applications will be distributed under Baihui brand. To start with, Baihui will offer the following Zoho applications…
- Zoho Writer - Baihui Xiexie
- Zoho Sheet - Baihui Gege
- Zoho Show - Baihui Xiuxiu
- Zoho CRM - Baihui CRM
This list will expand going forward. All these applications are currently available @ www.baihui.com.
As with Zoho, Baihui plans to offer these applications free of charge for individuals. Zoho CRM does carry a price tag (99RMB/User/Month) beyond three free users.
While I don’t understand any of the stuff in the above screenshot, we are certainly excited to see our apps up there. Almost 50% of our existing users are outside US which is a good sign. We think partnerships like these will extend our reach further.
There are more exciting stuff coming from Zoho. We’ll keep you posted.
Zoho Writer Extends Mobile Support, Adds Offline Capability for Windows Mobile Using Google Gears
As you may know, we launched Zoho applications for iPhone earlier at izoho.com. Today, we are extending our mobile support further. Coming just a week after an important update, Zoho Writer’s new functionality includes support for Windows Mobile.
You can now access your Zoho Writer documents from your Windows Mobile device. Currently we support Windows Mobile 6.0. Documents in Zoho Writer can be viewed using Internet Explorer on your Windows Mobile device. The current version supports viewing your documents. Document editing will be offered later.
Windows Mobile Offline Support
One of the significant functionality added in this update is offline support on your Windows Mobile device.
As you may know, desktop version of Zoho Writer supports offline capability using Google Gears. With today’s launch of Google Gears for Windows Mobile, we are extending our offline support to Windows Mobile devices as well. This means you can now access your Zoho Writer documents from your Windows Mobile device on the plane.
This video gives you a quick idea on how Zoho Writer works offline on your windows mobile device.
We again would like to thank Google for their commitment for the open source Gears project. As always, we can’t wait to hear your feedback/comments on this.
Zoho Writer Update: DocX Support, Thesaurus, Group Sharing & More
After adding business friendly features like Pagination, Headers & Footers, Headnotes & Footnotes, Offline Support etc in our previous updates, we are further enhancing Zoho Writer functionalities with today’s update. The highlights include…
- DocX Support
- Thesaurus (in 10 languages)
- Sharing with Groups
- Enhanced Endnotes/Footnotes
- Enhanced Headers/Footers
DocX Support:
Zoho Writer now supports exporting to DocX, the new Microsoft OOXML file format for Word. Ofcourse, we already support ODF Export/Import in Zoho Writer. Currently you can export any of your documents in Zoho Writer as a DocX file. This is added in addition to the already available export options - DOC, TXT, HTML, PDF, ODF, SXW and RTF. We will soon be supporting DocX import as well.
Thesaurus:
We now added Thesaurus option (in 10 languages). Right-click on a word, choose the ‘Thesaurus’ option from the contextual menu to view the synonyms and related words. The current version of Thesaurus is used more for lookup purposes. We plan to enhance this functionality further to replace the words with selected ones from thesaurus in the next version.
Languages supported in Thesaurus: English, Czech, German, Greek, French, Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian & Slovak. We will keep adding more language options in future updates.
Sharing with Groups:
You can now share documents with groups. This makes it a lot easier to share documents with multiple people avoiding entering of multiple email addresses each time you share a document. To share a document with a group, click on ‘Share’ and select the ‘Share with Groups’ tab. You can create new groups in your ‘My Account‘ section. These groups will be visible across all Zoho Applications.
Enhanced support for Endnotes/Footnotes:
As you may know, we recently added Endnotes & Footnotes capabilities in Zoho Writer. This updates enhances this functionality further. All your Zoho Writer documents when exported to DocX, ODF, SXW & RTF will retain the endnotes/footnotes correctly. We now also import endnotes/footnotes from DOC, ODF, SXW, RTF files.
Enhanced support for Headers/Footers:
Headers/Footers support is further enhanced in this latest update. Full support is available when you export documents to DocX, ODF, SXW & RTF.
Apart from these, there are other enhancements and bug fixes in this update. Manual page breaks are also supported in export/import as well.
Do give the latest features a try and let us know what you think.
Add Footnotes & Endnotes to your Zoho Writer Documents
Zoho Writer now supports footnotes & endnotes, two much asked for functionalities by our users (students, teachers & researchers in particular). The below slideshow shows the details of footnotes & endnotes in Zoho Writer.
Other than the footnotes & endnotes being visible during print (use the ‘Print Using PDF’ option), they get transferred when exported as Microsoft Word (.doc) or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) files as well. Support for .odt to come in the upcoming update.
Try the new foot/endnotes in Zoho Writer and we will be glad hearing your feedback.
ps : The foot/endnotes extend the pagination and header/footer support which got added a couple of months back.
Zoho Writer Supports Offline Editing
Just a few days after we added features like Pagination, Header/Footer etc in Zoho Writer, the team is ready with another update adding offline editing capabilities.
In August, we made Zoho Writer available offline. When we released it back then, the documents were available in read-only mode when offline. With today’s update, you’ll now be able to view and edit your documents offline. This functionality is based on Google’s open source project Google Gears. We thank them for the project and their support.|
For Zoho Writer to work offline, you’ll need to have Google Gears plug-in installed on your browser (works on Firefox 1.5+, IE 6+). Click on ‘Go Offline’ to access your documents offline. By default, we download 15 documents each from ‘My Docs’ and ‘Shared Docs’ section. You can change the default setting by clicking on the down arrow beside ‘Go Offline’ link. The documents are downloaded based on the ‘Sort Order’ in your ‘My Docs’ section.
When you are not connected to the internet, you can visit http://writer.zoho.com/offline to access and edit your documents offline. When you are back online, clicking on ‘Go Online’ will let you to synchronize the modified documents with the online versions.
The following video should give you a quick overview on how this functionality works.
For better clarity, try this video. You’ll notice that not all functionalities available online are available in offline mode. This is because some of the functionalities are online specific while others will make their way into the offline mode moving forward.
Another new feature to come as part of this update is Right-to-Left language support. We have a lot many users from the Middle-East who had been asking for this. Click on the ‘Page Setup’ icon (
), the third from left on the Zoho Writer toolbar and you will see the language ‘Direction’ option in the pop-up window that opens.
Please do give our offline editing capabilities a try and let us know your feedback. If you’d like to be informed in advance of announcements from Zoho, subscribe here.
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Zoho Writer Supports Offline Editing
Just a few days after we added features like Pagination, Header/Footer etc in Zoho Writer, the team is ready with another update adding offline editing capabilities.
In August, we made Zoho Writer available offline. When we released it back then, the documents were available in read-only mode when offline. With today’s update, you’ll now be able to view and edit your documents offline. This functionality is based on Google’s open source project Google Gears. We thank them for the project and their support.|
For Zoho Writer to work offline, you’ll need to have Google Gears plug-in installed on your browser (works on Firefox 1.5+, IE 6+). Click on ‘Go Offline’ to access your documents offline. By default, we download 15 documents each from ‘My Docs’ and ‘Shared Docs’ section. You can change the default setting by clicking on the down arrow beside ‘Go Offline’ link. The documents are downloaded based on the ‘Sort Order’ in your ‘My Docs’ section.
When you are not connected to the internet, you can visit http://writer.zoho.com/offline to access and edit your documents offline. When you are back online, clicking on ‘Go Online’ will let you to synchronize the modified documents with the online versions.
The following video should give you a quick overview on how this functionality works.
For better clarity, try this video. You’ll notice that not all functionalities available online are available in offline mode. This is because some of the functionalities are online specific while others will make their way into the offline mode moving forward.
Another new feature to come as part of this update is Right-to-Left language support. We have a lot many users from the Middle-East who had been asking for this. Click on the ‘Page Setup’ icon (), the third from left on the Zoho Writer toolbar and you will see the language ‘Direction’ option in the pop-up window that opens.
Please do give our offline editing capabilities a try and let us know your feedback. If you’d like to be informed in advance of announcements from Zoho, subscribe here.
Related Posts:
Zoho Writer Major Update: Pagination, Header/Footer Support, Multi-lang Spellchecker and more…
Following a series of updates from other Zoho apps, today, we rolled out a major upgrade to Zoho Writer. The key enhancements include…
- Pagination Support
- Header and Footer Support
- Spell Check in 43 languages
- ….and more
Now, lets take a closer look at each of these features.
Pagination:
You can now view your document page-wise by clicking on the ‘Page View’ link.
For printing Zoho Writer documents, we recommend using the ‘Print Using PDF’ option as shown in the image above (as against using the older ‘Print Preview’, ‘Print’ option). This option overcomes the limitations in browser based printing.
Headers & Footers Support:
Another most requested feature (and often considered missing feature in online word processors) is Headers/Footers. It is now supported in Zoho Writer. You can define your Headers and Footers from the ‘Page Setup’ link or the ‘Page Setup’ icon () which is the third icon from the top.
The Headers/Footers that are defined will show up fine when the document is printed. These will also be intact when you ‘Export’ the document to PDF/DOC.
Spell Check in 43 Languages:
The enhanced spell checker now supports 43 languages. This means, no matter which language you write your document in, you can now spell check the content in that language. Also, the spell check setting is at the document level. This means, you can choose a different language spell check for each document.
Other Enhancements:
Apart from these features mentioned above, there are several enhancements as part of this update. These include…
- Improvements have been to made to Import/Export of .doc files.
- The documents that you make as ‘Public’ can now be downloaded & also sent to your friends by email in different formats. Also, whenever someone comments on your public document, you’ll receive a notification mail informing the same.
- Zoho Writer is now available in Chinese too, taking the tally of UI language options to 11.
Do give these features a try and let us know what you think. We are really looking forward to hearing your feedback.
Update : Zoho Plugin for Microsoft Office
We are pleased to announce several new enhancements to our Zoho Plugin for Microsoft Office. Users can download the new version of the plugin here. The salient features of this update are :
Option to keep a local copy
This is a nice little feature wherein users can keep a local copy of the existing document/workbook that is available in Zoho Writer & Sheet. To achieve this, users just need to enable the check box “Keep a local copy” when they are logging in to access their documents from within Microsoft Word/Excel.
There is also an option to create a new Zoho account from the Zoho Plugin credentials page. Click on the “New Zoho User? Sign Up” link to set up an account with us. This is for the users who have downloaded the plugin but are yet to sign up for Zoho Services.
Added a new tab - Local Documents
Now that the users can have a copy of the online document/workbook in their local drive, there is a new tab “Local Documents” added to the “Add-Ins” option in Word/Excel. Users can access the local copy by clicking on this particular tab. Locally downloaded documents/spreadsheets are password protected now. Users are asked to provide Zoho account password when opening a local copy of the document/spreadsheet. The enhanced security is to prevent unauthorised access.
Users also have the option to delete the local copy. Click on local documents tab from Add-Ins, select the document & choose delete button to perform the above operation.
Offline editing of documents/workbooks
User can now edit their documents/workbooks offline using the local copy and can sync up the updated offline version with the online version of the document/workbook in Zoho Writer/Sheet by connecting to the internet, signing in to their Zoho account from the Add-ins tabs in Word/Excel and then choosing the option “Save in Zoho Writer/Sheet”.
Multi-user Support
Our earlier version of Office Plugin did not allow the guest user of Windows to access the documents/workbooks. Now guest users (as opposed to only allowing users with Administrator privileges previously) who have an account with Zoho can access & edit their documents/workbooks in MS Word/Excel.
Do have a go at the enhanced Zoho Office Plugin and let us know your feedback.
Zoho Office Plugin Updates
We are pleased to announce several new enhancements to our Zoho Office Plugin. Users can download the new version of the plugin here. The salient features of the plugin updates are:
Option to keep a local copy
This is a nice little feature wherein users can keep a local copy of the existing document/workbook that is available in Zoho Writer & Sheet. To achieve this, users just need to enable the check box “Keep a local copy” when they are logging in to access their documents from within Microsoft Word/Excel.
There is also an option to create a new Zoho account from the Zoho Plugin credentials page. Click on the “New Zoho User? Sign Up” link to set up an account with us. This is for the users who have downloaded the plugin but are yet to sign up for Zoho Services.
Added a new tab - Local Documents
Now that the users can have a copy of the online document/workbook in their local drive, there is a new tab “Local Documents” added to the “Add-Ins” option in Word/Excel. Users can access the local copy by clicking on this particular tab. Locally downloaded documents/spreadsheets are password protected now. Users are asked to provide Zoho account password when opening a local copy of the document/spreadsheet. The enhanced security is to prevent unauthorised access.
Users also have the option to delete the local copy. Click on local documents tab from Add-Ins, select the document & choose delete button to perform the above operation.
Offline editing of documents/workbooks
User can now edit their documents/workbooks offline using the local copy and can sync up the updated offline version with the online version of the document/workbook in Zoho Writer/Sheet by connecting to the internet, signing in to their Zoho account from the Add-ins tabs in Word/Excel and then choosing the option “Save in Zoho Writer/Sheet”.
Multi-user Support
Earlier version of Office Plugin did not allow the guest user of Windows to access the documents/workbooks. Now guest users (as against only users with Administrator privileges previously) who have an account with Zoho can get their documents/workbooks in MS Word/Excel.
Do have a go at the enhanced Zoho Office Plugin and let us know your feedback.
Offline Support & Comments in Zoho Writer
We just rolled out an important update to Zoho Writer. This update includes two important features. Offline support & Comments.
Offline Support:
We are taking our first steps towards offering Zoho Writer offline. With this update, you’ll now be able to access all your documents offline (Mac or PC) in read-only mode. We will offer offline editing capabilities in the coming weeks.
Zoho Writer Offline capabilities is based on Google Gears. Many thanks to Google for a great open source project. We plan to support and contribute to this project.
In Zoho Writer, you’ll now see ‘Go Offline’ link on the top. Clicking on the link for the first time will prompt you to install Google Gears. Once the installation is complete (and your browser restarted), click on ‘Go Offline’ to make your documents (both personal and shared docs) available offline. By default 15 documents are downloaded to be available offline. You can change the options by clicking on the down arrow beside ‘Go Offline’ link to download more documents. To go back online, click on ‘Go Online’ and you’ll be redirected to the online version of Zoho Writer.
Once you download your documents, you can access them @ http://writer.zoho.com/offline whenever you are offline.
This brief video talks about this functionality.
Comments is another useful feature we rolled out in today’s update. You can now add comments within the content of your document by clicking on the new comment button in the toolbar (
) or just right click and select ‘Add Comment’. When a comment is posted, it is shown with a comment icon (
). Multiple users can add comments making it a discussion as you see below.
Clicking on the comments icon on the status bar (
) shows all the comments inside the document.
Do give these features a try and let us know what you think.
Also, we plan to add another useful feature to Zoho Writer next week….any guess on what that would be?
Zoho Writer & Sheet Update : More language options etc
The latest Zoho Writer update added a few more goodies. In addition to English, we have had a Japanese version for quite sometime. Zoho Writer is now available in a lot many languages as well. Soon, there will be Chinese and Portuguese versions.
Zoho Sheet too has added support to more languages (to the initial five).
One main and valid complaint from our users is that the UI across Zoho services lacks consistency. And we have just started addressing it. We introduced the easy ‘Switch to’ option in Zoho Writer first and most other Zoho services now have it. Now, the collaborative chat functionality in Writer has been made similar to the one in Sheet. Clicking on the small text bubble at the bottom-right of your screen will open the Chat tab to the right. More UI related updates soon.
The last but not the least, a very important update has happened in Zoho Writer. Full search was disabled for sometime in between (due to performance issues) and you were able to search on document names & features alone. You can now search within documents as well. For now, we support searching in English alone and search for other languages will be available soon.
Do test drive the new features and we will be glad hearing your feedback.
Switch to other Zoho services from Zoho Writer easily
A small but very important and useful function got added in today’s Zoho Writer update. You will now notice a ‘Switch To’ link at the top of your Zoho Writer page. Click on that and in the drop-down menu that appears, you will find links to other Zoho apps. Allows you to open your other Zoho app accounts in new browser tabs easily from within Zoho Writer.
All the other Zoho applications will follow suit in having this option soon.
Zoho Apps on Facebook
Zoho Applications (Writer, Sheet and Show) are now available on Facebook and we are excited about this. We got several requests from many users and well wishers like Krish asking us to do this integration. Considering the fact that 30% of our users are students, we couldn’t resist.
So, what can you do with this application?
You can now create documents, spreadsheets and presentations from Facebook. You can also view and edit all your existing documents, spreadsheets and presentations (both personal and shared) from Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show. Here is a quick screenshot.
This makes Zoho the first office app on Facebook. Do give it a try and add it to your profile. This application provides a good view of all your documents in a single page.
Talking about providing all documents in a single page, let me pre-announce something else here. We are working on way to better organize your documents in a single place (compared to our application specific organization). We will reveal more details on this soon.
Meanwhile, do give our new Facebook app a try and let us know what you think.
iZoho - Zoho for iPhone
…or should I say ‘Office for your iPhone‘. This is fun project going live in record time (thanks to our APIs and of course our team).
iZoho (no, its not an online desktop 
) is an easier way to access your Zoho Apps on your Mobile…atleast, iPhone for now. Sure, you can use Zoho Apps in their current form on your iPhone, but there is lot of stuff you don’t need on your mobile phone. So we simplified the interface and just provided simple features you’d normally use on a mobile phone.
We have three applications available currently in iZoho - Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show which lets you view your documents, spreadsheets and presentations in Zoho. Currently you can view and edit your documents, but you cannot edit your spreadsheets and presentations (you can only view them). You can also create new documents and view your presentations in landscape mode. There will be more features coming as we move along.
Frankly, we don’t know how this will work on iPhone as we haven’t tested it. It certainly works well on Safari so we hope it’ll be a non-issue. In any case, we will be fine tuning this over the next few days.
As I mentioned earlier, a device with a big screen, built in Wi-Fi, good usability and a full fledged browser will only improve the chances of practically using web apps on a mobile device.
Do give it a try and let us know what you think (support at zoho.com). Below are some screenshots.
Zoho Writer now in Japanese
Japanese users of Zoho Writer are in for a treat. Thanks to our Japanese colleagues who are putting in a lot of effort in translating the Zoho services’ UI screens, Zoho Writer now joins Zoho Sheet in providing a Japanese UI. In your Zoho Writer account, click on ‘Options’ -> ‘Settings’ and you will find the language option there.
Soon we will be adding other language UIs to Zoho Writer (and other Zoho services) as well.
Zoho APIs made easier
The Zoho API for Zoho Writer, Sheet & Show have been made more developer friendly. In addition to the existing XML-RPC format, we have added the REST APIs as well. This makes it a lot easier for the developers to read data by just making HTTP GET requests to Zoho. The new storage REST APIs for :
Zoho Writer
Zoho Sheet
Zoho Show
One more change is the way time/date is handled in our API response messages. It wasn’t flexible enough since it returned the date in a particular format & the time was in our server’s timezone. We have changed this to the standard long milliseconds format which is just the number of seconds since Jan 1, 1970, 00:00 GMT.
Omnidrive, Box.net, myDataBus, Kearen are some of the web services which have implemented the Zoho API and there’s a lot more to come. Try the new APIs out and we will be glad hearing your feedback.
Zoho partners with EchoSign & more
We are glad to announce a partnership with EchoSign. We will be integrating our applications wherever it makes sense. First integration point is Zoho Writer.
Zoho Writer’s latest update has EchoSign integrated. You can now draft your contracts, NDAs, sales proposals etc in Zoho Writer and send it for your business partners’ approval/digital signing with EchoSign. With a complete workflow becoming digital, it makes things easier. Special thanks to Ismael Ghalimi for pointing us in this direction. Please do let us know how you use this feature.
Recently, we also announced partnerships with OmniDrive, Box.net & Flixn too.
Today’s Zoho Writer update also includes other enhancements. Special thanks to Zoli, this update also has a couple of things as regards blogging. You can now post to your blog as draft from Zoho Writer. And if your blog is a metaWeblog supported one, all your categories get listed in Zoho Writer. You can check the categories for which the blog is to be posted to (previously, you would have to enter the categories manually each time)
 
Try the new features in Zoho Writer. Your feedback will be much appreciated.
Zoho Writer integrates with EchoSign and more
Zoho Writer’s latest update added EchoSign integration. You can now draft your contracts, NDAs, sales proposals etc in Zoho Writer and send it for your business partners’ approval/digital signing with EchoSign. With no desktop based application needed to create the document, this makes it a lot easier having everything online from start to finish.
Special thanks to Zoli, this update also has a couple of things as regards blogging. You can now post to your blog as draft from Zoho Writer. And if your blog is a metaWeblog supported one, all your categories get listed in Zoho Writer. You can check the categories for which the blog is to be posted to (previously, you would have to enter the categories manually each time)
 
Try the new features in Zoho Writer. Your feedback will be much appreciated.
Box.net integrates Zoho
Two weeks back Zoho partnered with OmniDrive to provide online document editing right from the storage service. Yesterday, Aaron Levie from Box.net announced integration with Zoho Writer to open and edit your word documents in Zoho Writer. Aaron mentions in his blog post…
It recently came to our attention that Zoho had opened up their APIs to help fulfill other websites’ document editing needs (credit to OmniDrive). So we quickly whipped up an update to the site that will now allow you to edit your Microsoft Word documents that are stored in your Box. There is no need to download the file you want to view or modify - just select “Edit Document” in the right-click option menu for your .doc file and Zoho will launch a new tab or window with your file! Then, make any edits you want and click “Save” in the upper left hand corner of the Zoho window. This will automatically save your updated file back to your Box.
We’d like to thank Box.net and look forward for further integration. We are very glad to see companies implementing our API and look forward for more such integrations.
For those of you who wish to use Zoho Remote APIs in your applications, below are the links.
Zoho Writer:
http://writer.zoho.com/public/help/zohoapi/fullpage
Zoho Sheet:
http://writer.zoho.com/public/help/sheet.remoteapi
Zoli and Solo Technology also covered this story.
OmniDrive becomes perfect with Zoho
Early last year I talked about Shortcomings of existing online storage solutions where the primary issue was upload/download. Once you have your documents uploaded to online storage solutions, you have to download them to view/edit them. This defeated the purpose of having online storage and hence online storage solutions were used more for backup than being your extended drive.
All of this is history today. OmniDrive, the online storage solution overcomes this limitation by integrating Zoho Apps. I call it ‘The Perfect Online Drive’. What does this mean? Well, if you have your documents online in OmniDrive, you can view/edit these documents just by double clicking on them. The documents then are opened in Zoho Applications. As of today you can open Word, HTML, txt and ODT formats in Zoho Writer. Next week this will also work with Zoho Sheet and Show as well.
Apart from viewing/editing documents online, you can also create new documents directly from OmniDrive.
It was really great working with OmniDrive on this solution. Look forward for more integration. Below are couple of screenshots.
Here is the article on TechCrunch.
Here is the announcement from OmniDrive.
Zoho features in PC World’s “The Web’s Most Useful Sites”
Ryan Singel at PC World looked at the best of the new Web services in 14 categories and has his results at “The Web’s Most Useful Sites“. While Zoho Writer won the best word processor, Zoho Sheet came runner-up in the spreadsheets category.
Zoho Writer features a hideable list of documents divided into sections for private, shared, and public documents, plus templates. Like Google Docs and ThinkFree, Zoho Writer can publish items directly to a blog and can save and import a range of text document formats, from Microsoft Word to HTML. With a plug-in for Microsoft Word, you can save from that application directly to your Zoho account.
It includes most of the common word processing features, from multiple undo to find-and-replace to extensive text formatting. You can also edit the HTML of a document, but the feature is so hidden you must use the search box to find it. Besting both Google and ThinkFree overall, Zoho handles multiple documents in a single window via tabs and lets you embed a Zoho spreadsheet in a Writer document. Modifying the spreadsheet automatically updates the Writer files.
Zoho Sheet’s clear icon-based controls, snappy response, intuitive keyboard navigation, graphs, and sharing options (which let you decide who can read particular worksheets in a document) make this an excellent tool for collaboration. It should improve as Zoho adds real-time collaboration and integrates it with other office offerings.
Thanks to Ryan & PC World! And thanks to all you Zoho users whose continuous feedback suggestions have kept us doing the right things, making this possible! Expect more from Zoho in 2007.
Demo account in Zoho Writer removed
Many users unintentionally leave sensitive data in Zoho Writer’s demo account without realizing that it can be viewed by others. So we have removed the demo account of Zoho Writer.
Our intention in having a demo account was to allow a new user to know what Zoho Writer has on offer before he/she signs up. And we didn’t want to force those users who just wanted to give it a try into registering. The Quick Create option should come to the new users’ rescue now (though it doesn’t have all the features offered by a Zoho Writer account)
Eating one’s own dog food
Pandurang Nayak, one of our long time well-wishers had asked :
Would the AdventNet sales team use Zoho Show? (Would they? Really?) Or would their finance team create all of their balance sheets and tax calculations for they year on Zoho Sheet. (Really, again?) Or would they expect their technology teams to create 3000-page product and technical documentation on Zoho Writer?
The answer to his last question is now public. Zoho Projects had an update just minutes before and its help documentation is now available. It was fully created and is hosted on Zoho Writer.
Other Zoho documentation on Zoho Writer currently include the Zoho Writer FAQ page, pages for the Zoho API (the application form for getting the API key is on Zoho Creator) and the help page for Zoho Plug-in for Microsoft Office. Thanks to Ahmed and Nithya who created all the content. And I expect all future technical documentation for Zoho to be hosted on Zoho Writer.
Coming back to the Zoho Projects update, users can now be notified by mail when a task is being assigned to a user and when a forum post is being made. And while sending feedback, you now have the option to post your feedback directly to the product forum too.
Check out the latest in Zoho Projects.
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Zoho Office Update
A cool & very useful update for the Zoho Online Office Suite happened just a few minutes ago. Ismael Ghalimi and a few other Office 2.0 patrons have been discussing about opening Office files directly on the web. With the latest update to Zoho, you can just do that.
If you noticed, Zoho Writer login page went for a re-design (tell us how you like it compared to the old page) & there are two new buttons right in the middle - QuickRead Plugin for Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install QuickRead and you can directly open documents, spreadsheets and presentations present on the web with Zoho! With Zoho QuickRead, downloading files to your computer & opening it with a desktop app becomes passé
Note : Zoho QuickRead works only for Office files on unauthenticated web pages
The above screenshot shows how a sample .doc can be opened with Zoho Writer. Notice the ‘Open with Zoho Writer’ option added to the right-click menu. ‘Open with Zoho Sheet’ & ‘Open with Zoho Show’ menu items will appear for spreadsheets & presentation files respectively.
Thanks are due to to Craig Cmehil, Dennis Howlett & Ismael Ghalimi who beta-tested QuickRead.
What’s more, if you are like Ismael and not so keen on having browser plugins, try using the following URL APIs for opening files
Documents (.doc, .sxw, .odt, .rtf) - http://www.zohowriter.com/publicimport.im?url=<url of document>
Spreadsheets (.xls, .csv, .sxc) - http://www.zohosheet.com/view.do?url=<url of spreadsheet>
Presentations (.ppt, .pps, .sxi) - http://www.zohoshow.com/publicimport.im?url=<url of presentation file>
(The QuickRead plugin is now downloadable from http://zohowriter.com for now. Links to the plug-in will be made available in Zoho Sheet & Zoho Show pages too soon)
Now to some Zoho Writer specific goodies. Important Note : Do a Shift+Refresh (for clearing browser cache) before trying the below features.
Zoho Writer now offers category support for WordPress (and other metaWeblog API supported blogs). I’m posting this to Zoho blogs from Zoho Writer!
Click on the ‘Insert Table’ icon now & you will be in for some surprise
For all those who have been struggling with Zoho Writer’s print functionality, we now have a direct ‘Print’ icon. (It is the second icon just next to the ‘Save’ icon & can be recognized easily)
Enhancements have been made to the right-click context menu. The menus will be context specific, ie., you will be offered the appropriate choices alone depending upon which part of the document you are.
Some bugs have been fixed too, the most notable one being the functioning of ‘Tab’ inside tables while in IE. You can now press the ‘Tab’ button and can move from cell to cell while using IE.
Do try the latest features added to the Zoho Online Office Suite & tell us what you think.
Tags : Zoho, QuickRead, Office 2.0, Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho Show
Zoho Writer celebrates first birthday!
Zoho Writer Alpha was launched on Sep 15, 2005. And we had a small b’day celeb going on today evening.
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Zoho Planner and Zoho Challenge got released last September too and the function commemorated all the three services. Dean has more to report.
Help manual for Zoho Writer in French
Thanks to Geoffray Steinhauer, we now have a Zoho Writer help document in French. You can access it from this page & the pdf can be downloaded from here.
If you are interested in having such a manual for Zoho Writer or any Zoho service in any language, please feel free to do so. We will feature it in our Help/FAQ pages.
Thanks once again to Geoffray!