When accessing a document you’ve shared with a collaborator (or multiple), you can see who is currently in the document and where they are in the doc in real time. Ease of CollaborationĪs others have noted, “while you can download your Word doc and email to others for collaboration, you can invite collaborators directly from your Google doc or send them a link to access your document.”

You don’t need to install it on your computer, but you do need a Google or Gmail account to use it. Don’t worry about those times when you don’t have access to WiFi – Google Docs works offline, too. Google Docs is the most accessible of the three programs considered here. Once embedded, any updates you make to the charts in Excel will be reflected in you Word document. If you want to embed charts from Excel into your Word document, it’s totally possible to do so. This can be particularly useful for research projects that involve lots of data. Microsoft Word has been adding features since its inception in 1989.Īs one website noted, “it’s the most reliable word processor for long documents or manuscripts that have several chapters, a dynamic table of contents, and indexing.” As such, it should come as no surprise that it is frequently the preferred choice for composing dissertations. Microsoft Word is perhaps the most familiar word processing application out there. Microsoft Office can be found in most workplaces and is a skill that is valued by most employers.

After that, your thesis writing process will (hopefully) be smooth sailing. We’ll go over the strengths and weaknesses of each, so that you can make the best choice for you. In this post, we’ll compare Scrivener, Microsoft Word, and Google Docs. How you decide which application to use depends primarily on your budget, your writing style, and what features you need. However, there are no rules about what word processing application you can use during the writing process. Institutions are pretty strict about the format in which a thesis should be submitted. Given the choice between Scrivener, Microsoft Word, and Google Docs, which would you choose?

How to use endnote with scrivener