DocSyncer Offers Instant Integration Between MS Office Files and Google Docs

For those who have been longing to somehow access desktop Microsoft Office documents online through Google Docs, there is now a new service known as DocSyncer, which does just that.

Currently available as a public beta, DocSyncer offers users the ability to synchronize their Office files with a Google Docs account. In just a few steps, anyone can begin having the documents on their computer automatically uploaded (and periodically updated) to their online Google Docs accounts, to be accessed from any web-connected PC at any time.

Getting started is as simple as inputting your email address and desired password into the service's registration form. After this, users are automatically guided to login directly to their Google Docs account, to which Google requires users to click "Grant Access" (as seen in the screen shot below) before DocSyncer is allowed future access directly to the account (for uploading and automatic synchonization).

Once all of that is complete, users are taken to the DocSyncer interface / dashboard, which contains a double-pane folder-tree view of all folders and documents, though at this point there will be none. Before the service can communicate with the files on a user's PC, a small piece of software must be downloaded and installed, to be run idle in the system taskbar.

The system requirements for DocSyncer are minimal (500 MHz processor, 64MB RAM, 10MB free space and a broadband internet connection), but access is currently limited to Windows PCs (2000/XP/Vista). Users of MS Office on Mac computers will have to hold tight longer, until the release of the DocSyncer software for OS X.

After installation of the software, the web-based interface can then be refreshed to indeed reveal that the software has been successfully installed and that DocSyncer has already automatically started the process of uploading any and all documents it finds on your PC, not just those in the My Documents folder. An AJAX popup indicates that this process can take anywhere from several minutes to several hours, depending on the number of documents stored on the PC and the speed of the internet connection being used. For the approximately 30 files the service found on my hard drive, the wait was hardly longer that five minutes or so. It would have been useful here to give users the ability to select only certain folders for the service to scan for documents. Synchronized files can then be accessed directly through the DocSyncer interface, to be opened locally on a PC, or online through Google Docs. Handy extra features include the ability to email a file, and to view all previous versions of an updated file.

Though its intentions are simple, DocSyncer is very good at what it does and can ease the frustration of not always having access to your documents at critical times. It is well worth a look, especially since it is completely free of charge.