As regular users of Zoho Writer might have known, it was under scheduled maintenance earlier today. We did a major update that fixed some bugs & improved the performance while adding some very interesting features too.
Zoho Writer as an online word processor, has been missing this most important feature of all. Yes, I’m talking about real time collaborative editing & here it is! Multiple persons can now work on a Zoho Writer document at the same time (before, the document got locked & only a single person was allowed to edit).
Assume that you have shared a document with a friend with ‘Read & Write’ privileges. You can both work now on the same document at the same time. Only the particular ‘block’ (typically it is a paragraph) that you are working on is locked & your friend who you have shared the document with cannot edit this particular block. The same’s applicable for the block being edited by your friend too. The changes being done by both of you to your respective blocks are reflected near real time. An added advantage is that one of you can lock the document if you think that will allow you to make the changes undisturbed (this can be done if you are the only one editing the document). Though I have used two editors as an example, more than two people can edit too. Try this new experience of constrained collaborative editing with Zoho Writer & let us know what you think.
A picture’s worth 1000 words. I believe the below screenshots will live up to the saying & convey how collaborative editing’s done with Zoho Writer.
Another much asked for functionality regarding the sharing mode is to have the flexibility of changing the body of the sharing mail that is sent by Zoho Writer. Ismael Ghalimi, among others felt that sharing mails from Zoho Writer can get ignored if the person receiving the sharing mail is not aware of Zoho Writer or what the mail is being sent for. This issue has been addressed as you can now write a customized message in the mail that is being sent. (we will explore about trying to give the ‘From’ email ID as yours, Ismael :-))
The document management system in Zoho Writer gets a much needed boost too. You can now sort your documents – by document name, created time or the last modified time.
Another feature is the introduction of a separate tab for the documents that you made public. This allows for quick & easy reference.
That’s not all. There was one cute little thing that missed this update & I think that one will most probably be available in an update the coming week. Stay tuned 🙂
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