Google Docs, You Make Me Crazy

What was I expecting to get for free?  The truth is, I had no idea what to expect, but the hype around Google Docs offering open source tools to everyone at no cost was great.  Among the benefits are the ability to upload and create word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation file types, access your files from anywhere, the capacity to store a fairly large amount of information, the capability of sharing those files with others while keeping everyone else locked out, and a facility to create folders for organizing those files.

I will be honest and say that I was not expecting the serious troubles I had with reformatting the uploaded document I had already meticulously set up in strict APA style.  I think the process would have been the same—that is, the same amount of editing effort would be required—if I had uploaded raw data.  Being familiar with formatting features in Microsoft Word was helpful, although I had to figure out some differences between Word and the word processor in Google Docs.  This was not a process I would like to do on a routine basis.

In addition, when working in the Google Docs word processing application, it is difficult to position your insertion point in the right place.  It looks like it is blinking in one place, but when making edits, I found that I was adding or deleting characters where I did not intend. 

Lastly, there were a number of server and other errors during upload, as well as with applying some of the formats (I almost forgot about them).  I am unsure of the causes, but with all of the problems I encountered, my time to deal with the document was extended by about 15 minutes—precious time I could have spent on working on another assignment.