Live Documents

Yet another online contender for the online office application crown has emerged in the form of Live Documents. Like Google Docs , Zoho, Ajax13 and ThinkFree it offers online word processing document, spreadsheet and presentation applications.

Live Documents is a free alternative to Microsoft Office, with Flash/Flex based alternatives to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, for those who wish to escape the chains of expensive, corporate software. Live Documents also offers embeddable collaborative tools, and synchronization with your current Office documents and will also work with Open Office for those who have already jumped off the Redmond bandwagon.

If you're already running Microsoft Office 2000, XP or 2003, then there's an optional Live Documents Plug-in/Desktop Client for Windows, which converts Microsoft Office into a web-enabled smart client and provides collaborative capabilities within the context of familiar desktop applications. The desktop client also facilitates offline access to your documents - any changes that you make to a Live Document in offline mode is cached locally and automatically synchronized to the server the next time you go online.

The system is still in private beta testing and logins are, for the moment, by invitation only so you have to register to get an invite.

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