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Writeboard
If Writely is a take-along lunch, Writeboard is more like a banana in your pocket. That’s because this utility is not a word processor, but rather a collaboration tool, a kind of fast-and-easy board for tacking up the latest version, asking for feedback, and incorporating comments.
Instead of uploading your file, you create a "writeboard" for others to view (see Figure 4). A blank screen pops up, and you paste in the text you want to share.
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Figure 4 After you create a writeboard, you paste in text.
When I say that in this application basic word-processing tools are minimal (see Figure 5), I mean that none exist in any reality plane I recognize.
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Figure 5 Formatting options in Writeboard are token.
Consequently, a formatted document pasted in from Word looks a lot like it would in WordPad (see Figure 6). No headers, no footers, no fonts, no images. You get Courier text. Numbers are retained, but their formatting is idiosyncratic.
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Figure 6 A formatted Word file (left) pasted into Writeboard (right).
As a collaboration tool, though, this application functions well. My favorite feature is a dandy comparison that lets you see version changes from your collaborator (see Figure 7).
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Figure 7 An option lets you compare each version to the previous one.
This utility is handy for thrashing out a draft to be exported as a .TXT or .HTML file, but the lack of formatting means it’s not a choice for final print presentation. Think of it as "WordPad on the web" that opens your files to share with anybody you invite, and you’ll have a good idea of what it does. Users occasionally swear that they would rather use WordPad than Word. If such is your eccentricity, this is the app for you.