Adobe Buzzword Beta

Buzzword is an online word processor written in Flash, and is Adobe's stylish attempt at stealing some of Google Docs' thunder. Its text-editing capability never moves far beyond basic: you can set the font, size, colour and use attributes such as bold, italic and underline. You can align paragraphs left, centre and right (but not justified), and set spacing between lines and paragraphs. Simple lists and tables are available, and you can insert images and have text flow around them. There's no way to do anything more complicated, such as format your document into columns. There's also no sign of quick formatting options, so you can't change the style of your document with a single click.

The main interface is good-looking. The top is occupied with Document, Edit, Insert and Help items. Below is a toolbar that swishes open to give you font and paragraph formatting, plus list, image, table insertion and formatting, as well as comments, and a final Docs section, which shows your saved documents.

There are no right-click menus, which takes some getting used to. Occasionally, Buzzword offers small markers in your document where a left-click offers further options, such as adding columns to a table, but having to head to the top row of icons each time you want to make a small change gets tiring.

Documents you create in Buzzword are stored on a server in America. Your work is saved every few minutes, plus there's a Save option in the menu and automatic saving when you close the document. There's a useful document history at the bottom, allowing you to step backwards and forwards through your documents at will. More crucially, you can share Buzzword documents with other users, giving them co-author, reviewer or reader status.

Buzzword has the most slick interface of any online word processor, and is certainly more enjoyable to use than Google Docs. For ease of use alone, it's worth a look.

Author: Simon Jones