How to use this Page

This is one of those blog posts written in service to my profession.

I recently got a $200 Chromebook because my MacBook Air, though much beloved, has become commandeered by my child. Other writers might be looking at this relatively low-cost option and wonder if it’ll work. My answer: sure. Sort of. Depends.

First, for the uninitiated: the Chromebook itself is a very cheap device that’s not quite a laptop; it’s more like a portable web browser. It comes with some hard drive storage, but pretty much all the apps run within the Chrome web browser. A Chromebook is practical if you just want something for surfing the Web, doing the occasional video chat (in google, not Skype), and a little light writing, etc. You can’t do page layout, graphic design, movie editing, or anything like that. Anything you might do, ask yourself if you can do it now in a web browser. If no, then you can’t do it on Chromebook.

I will henceforth refer to it as a “device” for lack of a better word. It is technically a computer, but doesn’t do what most computers do. In some ways it’s a big phone. But it doesn’t make calls, so…. device.

So how do you write and edit? Well, about ten years ago when Google acquired a program called Writely, and since then it has had an Office-like suite of web-based tools that keep getting quietly better: a word processor, a spreadsheet program, a presentation program, and a drawing application. Those apps are integrated seamlessly with Google drive, a cloud-based file storage that synchs with all of your devices. Decoded this means: you can write in your web browser using a Microsoft-word like program, and although your files are saved to your device, they’re also saved on Google servers so even if you drop your device down the sewer you can retrieve the documents.

But could using the web app replace Microsoft Word? Word has never been perfect but has been way more than adequate for the last fifteen-to-twenty years. Word handles large files well (ask me about my first novel, when it didn’t), it automatically backs up files, it has a very efficient spellchecker, a reliable word counter, and can even deliver lexile scores in a few minutes. Also, Word is industry standard. Many editors have now switched to Word annotations to deliver edits to writers. I think Winter of the Robots was seen from conception to first pass pages without a single hard copy.

You can open a document in a Web browser on a Chromebook and start hammering away, but can you do all of that? This is what I’m finding out.

This is what I’ve learned so far.

First, stick with the native functionality of Chrome/Google.

Having been a contented Dropbox user for ages, I immediately installed that app and opened it to see my current documents. I clicked one and it opened in Microsoft Word. OK, it opened in a limited version of Word that runs online, but I had no idea that Dropbox had been acquired by Microsoft and was now fully integrated with a free version of Microsoft Office 365. Hooray!

This was really cool for about five minutes, but then I found out stuff like, navigating the document is really hard, the app doesn’t keep up with my typing, and every few minutes I get an error message that the document needs to reconnect to sync. This is likely to improve with time but at present the Word Online tool is pretty clunky. I spent more time swearing at it than actually writing/revising.

I mean, you get what you pay for and it’s pretty cool to get Word-like functionality for free, even with those issues and the mysterious proliferation of page breaks and the inability to work offline and the lack of a “Save as” option and the…. never mind. The more I think about it, the more I realize I lost a week of my writing life there.

Second, convert to Google Docs. 

Wouldn’t you know it, but Google Apps can also open Word documents (in “Word Compatibility Mode”) without converting them, and even lets you edit them — but unless you want to do really light editing, it’s a pretty painful way to work. Like Word Online, it’s not terribly responsive to keyboard interactions, and it doesn’t automatically save, and you don’t have a “Save as…” option. In fact, there’s not even a “Find/Replace” option, or much in the way of paragraph formatting.

If you had a perfectly formatted document you’re about to send out on submission and had one or two minor edits, this would work, because it never changes the .docx format of the original. But you have more tools and an easier time using them if you convert to .gdoc format (Open the file in compatibility mode, then go to File: convert to Google Docs).

Third, install Table of Contents and Document Explorer

I am revising, which requires me to move nimbly between chapters. And for this, I am very reliant on the Document Map feature in Word. This doesn’t exist in Word Online, or in the “Compatibility Mode” of Google Apps that lets you edit a native Word doc. But it does exist upon conversion. Go to Add-Ons, Get Add Ons and look for each tool.

Table of Contents simply gives you a clickable sidebar based on your headings — which, sigh, you will have to manually redo even if you already have headers in a document you’ve converted. But only once.

Document Explorer has additional navigation options, the most useful for me being the search pane — I can do things like search for the word “just” so I can then click from usage to usage and delete it as needed. It is also handy to create an ad-hoc table of contents (using the search term “chapter”) so you can make them official headers in the Google Doc.

Fourth, download backups

You may think you have emergency back up files on your device because you see the .gdoc sitting in your offline folder, but in fact these are basically links to the real document which lives… somewhere… else. Only Google knows.

One thing I have a hard time adjusting to is, I used to make a copy of my document in progress every day, change the file name to include the current date, and begin editing. All those back ups made me happy. Google Docs (and these other options) have a revision history, so in theory you can recover any past version, but it’s just very all-eggs-in-one-baskety for one file to have the entire labors of the last two years, or even the last two weeks, so I now (try to remember to) save a download as Word every day, but work in one document named “Working Document.”

Fifth, Move everything to Google Drive

I save those backups to my offline folder, but I found this transition easier once I dropped Dropbox. I moved all my working files to Google Drive and cleaned up the mess that had gathered there since I created the Google account in 2007 (If anyone needs the agenda from a U of M ETF from that year, sorry, I deleted it).

I forget what Google’s drive limit is but it’s ample for simple word processing documents. I don’t even think Isaac Asimov could have used up all the space with his writing projects. If you use your drive space for something else, consider swapping that to Dropbox or one of the many other free-tier cloud services, because Chromebook thrives when you stay in the Googleverse.

Sixth, stay in Google Docs

I drove myself crazy trying to keep Word in the picture. Word is better, so I think, while I am on my Mac, why not use Word? But whatever option I use, I end up cleaning up formatting stuff that got screwy in transition, and I know I could ignore but everything. has. to. be. just. so. I’ve been more productive on actual revisions since weaning myself completely from Word and staying in the active gdoc.

Seventh, I am not ready to drop Word completely. 

Spellchecking is available in Google Docs but not reliable. See where it suggested I change “Not” to “Nort”? Um.

Professional formatting touches like page breaks before headings, widow/orphan control, marking language for passages, are also not available in Google Docs. So I will have to download as Word and spellcheck/touch up before it’s ready to submit.

Finally, I know I can theoretically download as Word, send to Ms. Agent or Ms. Futureditor, but receive back with their comments/annotations, and open again in Google Docs. How well this will work in practice, I dunno.  Maybe I’ll even find, in time, that the industry has shifted so that it’s normal for writers to “share” rather than “deliver” documents, which is more how this is supposed to work. But it may turn out that once I am in editing I will have to use Word solely.

Verdict:

Using an optimized writing app like Writer might prove an interesting way to fast draft, and I think ultimately writing  and editing a full-length novel in Google Docs will be no worse (maybe slightly better) than my earliest word processing adventures in the early 1990s. But for now I will still need occasional access to Word and I expect that the Google Doc approach will only see me through submission and I will have to resume Word in editing (which, knock on wood, will be something I find out soon).

I had the pleasure to present my first conference program alongside my esteemed colleague Linda Braun yesterday.  We talked about apps at the Massachusetts Library Association Conference.  As when any two people who are enthusiastic about a topic are given room to run with it, we could have gone on quite a lot longer than our hour and fifteen minute time slot.  In an effort to economize on time, and deal with some inevitable technical difficulties, our presentation was a fast-talking, fun, and somewhat chaotic look at a bunch of apps we think are great and their potential for library applications.  Discussion was sparked, and various people stopped by throughout the rest of my conference day to say they were excited to experiment and learn more about apps.

To prepare for our presentation we used a Google Doc to create an annotated list of apps we wanted to recommend.  We weren’t able to discuss everything we listed, and our list is by no means comprehensive, but it is a selection of apps in various categories from gaming to art to academic, that we think you would enjoy.

Have a look at our document: Apps Apps Everywhere  and feel free to add some apps to our list.

When this month’s theme was announced I got to thinking of some of the innovations that have entered into my world since I was a child. I should state here that I am defining innovation according to its “invention” and “evolution” roots. I wanted to think about what new systems/ideas/products have been brought into librarianship that have made me wonder how we could have ever done without.

Like poor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, what have I grown accustomed to? So, I’ve been thinking about this for a while and here are a few of my favorite innovations without which I am sure my job and my life would be far more challenging and far less enjoyable.

(Mind you, this is in no particular order.)

1.  Wireless printing: I am writing this post from the comfort of my living room sofa. If I want to proofread a hard copy of this, I am able to tell my computer to print and the document will print out in my office. Even better, my printer can be anywhere in my office and is not tethered to wires around my computer. It’s rather freeing really. Somehow the whole concept of this wireless freedom, which has shown itself in many office environs thanks to networking, did not become fully real to me until I was untethered both at work and home.

2. Online card catalogs: Sometimes I think I am a closet catalouger. I can often get sidetracked by a small catalouging project by the discovery that certain subject headings are inconsistent. At a time when many of us are shifting the way we view our shelving, we have to give some credit to the flexibility online cataloguing provides. It is now VERY easy to make global systematic changes to records. Granted, I’ve rarely found a catalog that was really end-user friendly (and some are disastrous on several fronts), so there’s still much innovating to be done in this arena, we cannot take for granted the benefit these systems have given us, especially in terms of personalizing our library collections.

3. Stylus pens: Yes, I know to grow accustomed to the stylus, I must also grow used to the device, but for me, the iPad tripled in usability once I could use my own handwriting and hand-drawing on the device.  The stylus allowed me to do just that, and also gave my forefinger a much wanted break. I have a favorite stylus, but will take other stand bys in a pinch. With the stylus, I am now able to take notes on a favorite note-taking app during a meeting and then send these notes back to myself (and others) via email, Evernote, iCloud or what have you.

4. Google docs: Since my graduate school days, I’ve been using Google docs, but it wasn’t until this year that I learned to love it. When collaborating with others who are not in the same place as you, Google docs can really save the day. And save time. And save us all from confusing moments of misinformation. Perhaps I give Google docs too much credit, but any tool that allows users to contribute in real time and maintains records of changes…that seems like a good thing. I imagine other programs have similar sharing capabilities, but currently Google docs is the one for me.

5.

When the kids come in with files from Office 2010 and Mac Office we always have issues. Our machines have Windows XP and Office 2003. How do we cope?
1. Google Docs is your friend. In almost any situation, Google Docs will take a file and open it so that a student can edit, print, save in another format.
2. Teaching students how to save in another format is NOT a waste of time but a time saver when the going gets tough. We prefer Rich Text because that format is available in all the platforms with all the software.
3. Emailing files can help provide evidence that the student had the work, they just can’t open it today. If we get the chance we try to ask them to copy and paste the document into their message, rather than attach it. Then we can copy and paste into our available word processing program or print directly from email.
4. Open Office is important for those students who have a computer but no money for software. Become familiar with it so you can help.

Coping with out of date technology is the fine art of making it work for your patrons. They can struggle to make technology work too, they just don’t obsess about it. They find a way around it. Take their attitude and make it your own.

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