Want to publish directly from Google Docs to your WordPress site? Setting-up Google Docs is a chore, but once you've done the hard work once, it's easy. Here's how I did it.

Google Docs may not be the world's best word processor, but you won't find a better way of collaborating on documents. Sharing and collaboration works far better than with Microsoft Word.

Recently I used Google Docs to edit some shared documents which would eventually become WordPress posts.

After writing the first post, I cut and pasted the text into WordPress. It wasn't pretty. Eventually I used WordPress' paste as plain text function, but that loses formatting.

I decided to investigate posting directly from Google Docs to WordPress.

There are a number of guides explaining how to do this, but an online applications like Google Docs is a moving target – some of the steps explained in the guides have changed in recent updates.

Here's what I did:

1. Get WordPress ready to receive Google Docs. Go to the Dashboard, select Settings, then Writing.

2. Select the box where it says:
XML-RPC Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols.

3. In Google Docs, open the document you'd like to post in WordPress.

4. Pull down the Share menu in the top right hand corner of the screen and select Publish as web page.

5. You should see two items, the second says This document has not been published to your blog.

6. If this is the first time you've tried posting to your WordPress site from Google Docs, there will be a message saying: You need to set your blog site settings before you can post documents to your blog.

7. Click on the link.

8. If you use a hosted WordPress.com blog, then click the first button (which is selected by default) and choose WordPress.com from the pull-down menu next to the word Provider. If you run a self-hosted WordPress site, you'll need to select the My own server / custom option then choose Metaweblog API and your site address. It's important to end the xmlrpc.php – which is normally in the home directory.

9. Add your user name and password.

The process isn't foolproof – I still ended up needing to edit some HTML code which came through from Google Docs – but if you've build your workflow around Google's tools, this is relatively straightforward.

Do you need the new version of Microsoft Office? After reading about today’s Office 2010 launch, I doubt I will upgrade. But I may need Word 2010.

Office 2010’s new feature list fails to interest me. It’s a long list of things I don’t need.

For example, I don’t need the SharePoint integration. I can’t use SQL or the Office Communications Server.

I’ve stopped using Outlook. So anything new there passes me by. Outlook doesn’t make sense for a single user when Gmail is so much easier.

I’d rather slash my wrists than inflict PowerPoint on anyone.

Much as I admire Excel, I barely use it. The Office 2007 version is more than enough. If I’m stuck, Google Spreadsheets can ride to my rescue.

Word 2010

Word is different. I use Word 2007 daily. I’m a journalist. My word processing needs are basic.

I don’t use mail merge or do anything fancy involving macros. I’ve never used cross-references, indexing, or end-notes.

For me, Word is a sledgehammer cracking a nut.

I certainly don’t need any more Word features. In fact, I’d prefer fewer.

For all its allegedly user friendly face, Word is a complex mishmash of fancy new gadgets and clunky old bits which still don’t work as expected and barely work with each other.

The extra graphic handling features in Word 2010 mean nothing to me. Word’s fussy auto-formatting makes my blood boil. The safety features are also annoying.

If I need to collaborate on documents – which happens in at least two of my regular freelance jobs – I use Google Docs. It’s a lousy word-processor, but a great way to share.

Despite all this, I still may shell out for Word, simply because it is a tool of my trade. I’m comfortable working in Word. Moving to an alternative would be a small financial investment, but a huge investment in terms of training.

I’ve found over the years it pays to stay up-to-date with Word because sooner or later I run in to compatibility problems.

Which sums things up. I don’t need Office 2010. I may need Word 2010, but not yet.

No upgrade discount

All of which makes Microsoft's decision to charge everyone full price for the software look like a dumb move. Lord knows there's little enough incentive to upgrade, but to make users pay a premium rather than offer discounted upgrade prices will make the buying decision far easier for many users.

I'm a journalist. I've been one for 30 years. I started in a world of manual typewriters and hot metal print.

Long before typing was mainstream I could touch type at secretary-like speeds. I've spent most of the last 20 years tapping away at a word processor.

So I know a thing or two about the subject.

For the last decade I've used Microsoft Word. Before it either MacWord or WordPerfect. That's not WordPerfect on Windows – we're talking about WordPerfect 5.1 – an MS-Dos application.

WordPerfect 5.1 represented the high water mark in PC word processing. I'd still use it today if it were a practical option.

In fact, I'd probably use a manual typewriter if I could hook it up to the net. No. Scrub that. Manual typewriters are hopeless when it comes to edits and rewrites.

Microsoft Word is the standard

Microsoft Word is the industry standard. Every editor I've dealt with in the past 10 years requires journalists to file copy in Word format. Or at least they did until recently.

Word has its advantages, but from my point of view, it never was as good as WordPerfect 5.1. It's bloated. Not just in terms of the weight of resources required to run Word, but in terms of features.

I don't need fancy layout, outlining and many, many other tools. In fact I don't need 90 percent of the features in Word. Most of them are distractions from the task at hand – which is converting ideas into words.

And using a mouse is a pain in the bum. Or, more accurately, a pain in the carpel tunnel.

Distraction free word processor

WordPerfect 5.1 did everything I wanted, well, perfectly. It was distraction free. Word isn't, but a number of modern applications aim for the same goal. I've written about them before.

WordPerfect 5.1 is the closest computers ever came to reproducing the good aspects of typewriters without chucking in the kitchen sink.

It had all the features I needed and they were all just a keystroke away. My fingers could find every command without engaging the brain. While this keyboard control is technically true of Word – the complexity overwhelms me and  I end up reaching for the mouse.

The fact someone even thought of adding a talking paper clip is a sign there's some badly screwed thinking behind Word. The truth is, Word is a word processor designed for people who are not professional writers by people who are not professional writers.

In a perfect world, someone would take WordPerfect 5.1 and turn it into a software-as-a-service application. It's a Saas application I would happily pay money for.

On a good day Google Docs gets close to the WordPerfect 5.1 ideal. I can hit Ctrl-Shift-F for full screen mode then hit F11 to get rid of Firefox's browser distractions. This is almost like typing on a clean sheet of paper.

Google Docs has been around for some time, but recently it has matured to the point where it is now a serious alternative to Microsoft Word. I'm not sure when this happened. It snuck up on me. A year ago the program wasn't up to scratch. Today it is.

Google Docs' weak points

One niggle is the lack of a zoom facility. If I'm typing in Google Docs using, say, 10 point Verdana, the onscreen text appears small. After 30 years as a journalist my eyes find that hard going. I can change the font size or even use Firefox's zoom feature, but a quick, single key zoom-unzoom command would be better.

The only other shortcoming in the software is the lack of a British English option in the spell checker. I'm a professional writer, so I don't use a spell checker while I'm writing, but it's a handy tool later when I'm proofing my copy. It's irritating being told my British spellings are incorrect when they are fine.

Google Docs is only useful when I'm connected to the Internet – which isn't 100 percent of the time. In theory Google Gears works around this roadblock, but in practice I've found it difficult to use the Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers when there's no connection – maybe the experience is better with Google's own Chrome browser, I haven't tested it yet.

Google Docs has one clear advantage over WordPerfect – you can share documents. This is not just a piece of bloated feature inflation. It's useful, elegant and to use a software industry cliché; powerful.

Word has a whole raft of features for tracking changes and commenting on documents. I'm sure some people find them useful. I've only ever used them once – in a job where the client insisted on marking changes this way. And as a journalist I've occasionally been amazed at the information left by people who don't know how to use Word's collaboration features properly.

Conclusion: Google Docs

When I set out to write this piece my original thoughts were Google Docs is useful but it doesn't cut the mustard for a journalist's writing needs. By going through the points logically for this story I've changed my opinion. Google Docs appears to do everything I need and, for now at least, seems a worthy successor to WordPerfect 5.1.

As an experiment I'm going to stop using all other writing tools for a few weeks to test this theory to breaking point. At some point I'll report back on the experience.

Updated: September 5

It's only 48 hours into the experiment and I'm throwing in the towel and returning to Microsoft Word. Soon I'll write a fresh post explaining why Google Docs doesn't work for me.

There are many low distraction writing tools. I’ve used Q10 and Darkroom on my PC. Both are good.

I’m told Mac users have something called Bean. I can’t comment, I’ve not had a Mac in five years.

And there are web-based alternatives.

I’d like to see Microsoft Word 2007 tweaked for distraction free writing.

Like it not, Word is the industry standard. As a professional writer I’m usually expected to turn in copy as Word files. Some clients expect me to use Word’s abysmal review and comparison features (don’t get me started).

My problem with Word is that it is massively overpowered for everyday writing. And massively overpowering to look at.

Can we fix it?

Get rid of those ribbon bars, the menu bar and the never-required left-right scroll bar. In fact get rid of almost everything. Default to the draft view with standard fonts and a handful of standard styles. Allow for all the Word keyboard commands. Can you see where I’m coming from here?

Whisper this, Microsoft’s Live Writer is almost what I’m after. At least it would be without the screen clutter. I’m writing this with Live Writer now and it’s functionally all I need.

See

Back-to-basics text processing: Where less can be more

Some knowledge workers are dumping heavy-duty word processors like Microsoft Word and switching to plain text editors.

Plain text appeals because it is a lowest common denominator. It always travels smoothly between applications, operating systems and devices. The same can’t always be said for Word documents.

Text is compact, efficient, quicker to search and easier to manage than word processor documents — geeks write small programs to merge, sort and otherwise process text files.

They already spend large parts of their working life dealing with plain text. The format is widely used for settings and configuration files.

Simpler than word processors

Text-editing programs are simpler than word processors. Many have been around for 30 years or more with roots in the pre-graphical-user-interface computing world.

They use keyboard commands — writing memos and other notes this way may look scary to non-technical types, but it isn't much of a stretch if you've used the same tools to handle your everyday technical tasks for a decade or more.

There's an added bonus to simple text editing; the applications can bypass the computer mouse. Given that mouse movements are one of the most troublesome sources of strain injury, switching to more keyboard-oriented writing tools can make a lot of sense for those technical types who spend hours hunched over their machines.

Ergonomics

Similar ergonomic concerns explain why some professional writers are turning their backs on conventional word processors. However, this group has another problem: modern word processors are busy-looking. It's hard to concentrate on writing when there are so many distractions.

It's tricky, but the old Dos favourite WordPerfect 5.1 can be shoehorned into working with Windows XP. Making it work with Vista is more of a challenge. A small but vibrant user community at WP Universe provides tips and even drivers to make the software work with modern operating systems and hardware.

You'd need to buy WordPerfect. Two recently developed applications channel its spirit for free. Darkroom and Q10 are both stripped down text editors designed to offer distraction-free writing.

Darkroom fussily requires Microsoft .Net 2.0, a deal breaker for some, while Q10 mainly gets on with the job, but I did detect some beta-software strangeness with both programs. Perhaps for now, this is a trend to watch and not follow.

There's a useful review of Darkroom, Q10 and a number of similar programs at bweaver.net.