Offline Access to Google Docs with Gears

Feb 05, 2009

Kristian Kissling

Gears is an open source application that allows users offline access to Google's documents and spreadsheets. But not entirely problem-free.

Google's online office, Google Docs, enables the creation of documents on the web, allowing access from anywhere in the world. Providing the information stored isn't too sensitive, a good idea. But most users can't be online 24/7. Now they don't have to be.

With the browser plug-in, Google Gears, users can create and modify documents offline. Changes are then updated on Google servers as soon as the user is back online. The application is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Currently, documents can be viewed but not modified, and only in the English language, but localizations are expected soon.
The new feature is available for users with Firefox 1.5+, Explorer 6 and Google Chrome. Once registered with docs.google.com, a click on the link "offline" starts the Gears installation.

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