Thread by @AlexandraErin

I grew up with Word so it took me a long time to get used to using Docs. And I have never minded paying for Office.

Where Word lost me for a big stretch of the early 21st century was their cloud integration.

https://twitter.com/JakeAnbinder/status/1390352898916290569

I can't remember a time when Google Docs cared how many different devices I had a document open across or where I was making changes.

I have vivid memories of when Word technically had cloud integration but got messy if you had multiple copies open.

And every once in a while Word still spits out an upload error or versioning conflict that has no easy resolution, whereas with Google Docs... you open the doc, you close the doc, and it's always the doc.

I prefer Word for the features and the interface, but if I didn't have my own computer that I return to daily to most of my work on? If I was going from computer lab to computer lab, library to library, and borrowed laptop to borrowed laptop?

Docs or bust.

Google Docs are a better product for somebody not using a dedicated computer.

And yes, Word has a web interface!

Which is not as good as Word the standalone application or Google Docs the dedicated browser application.

I have devoted a considerable amount of time and energy to finding out the absolute most seamless way to be able to pick up and start writing anywhere I find myself, and I can tell you, Google Docs beats out Word there, handily.

Heck, I have *never* in my life, before or after, written as much or as regularly as I did back in the days when I had a phone with a physical built-in keyboard that could run Google Docs.

I held onto that phone until GDocs outgrew its capabilities, for that reason.

And it's not like I did *all* my writing on my phone with the little thumb keys. I did quite a bit of it on my computer. But if I had five or ten minutes or half an hour to wait somewhere, and inspiration struck, I could pull my phone out and work on what I'd left on my desktop.

And then I'd go back to my desktop and there would be what I'd done on my phone.

As I write this, I'm half talking myself into starting up a "clean" (as in, empty and not in need of organization) Google account and see what I can do writing in it, as I now have hardware that supports that "pull out device and start writing" lifestyle again.