What are the benefits and challenges of using Google Docs for co-authoring?

This can be either a benefit or a detriment, depending on what's happening with the document and how coordinated the contributors are. It can be incredibly helpful to see updates in real time; however, it can also be incredibly annoying to update a section, only to find out later that someone else changed it without your knowledge. Communication and coordination are key in collaborative documents. Set clear guidelines as to who is responsible for what (and when), and if someone makes changes that impact another's contributions, be sure that is made clear to everyone involved.

Sometimes co-authoring is not appropriate, for example working on an audited document where a version needs to be 100% attributable to one author, or a spreadsheet where you are updating complex functions. Unfortunately Google does not have a check out feature so you have to either change permissions or take offline copies to achieve this.

Seeing real-time edits in action for the first time was a wee bit jarring. However, the more I work with remote clients the more I find it indispensable for collaboration though. My only caveat is that you should have some editorial and review guidelines in place to make it truly effective. Inexperienced editors and reviewers can make a real mess if you don't give them any training or even mentoring. There's nothing worse than seeing grammatical errors and factual inaccuracies appear in your document in real-time.

Benefits of Using Google Docs for Co-Authoring. Accessibility and Compatibility, real-time editing, version control, and history. Collaboration features and cost-effectiveness. Challenges of Using Google Docs for Co-Authoring. Privacy and Security Concerns. Limited Formatting and Layout Options. Potential for Conflicts. Offline Functionality Limitations. Limited Control over User Permissions. In conclusion, Google Docs offers significant advantages for co-authoring, particularly its real-time editing features, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness.

Although Microsoft file formats are supported, there are many cases where Microsoft file formats experience small corruptions when they are edited in the Google web apps. For example Excel UK date format changed to US date format when edited in Sheets.

Overall, Google Docs has great compatibility, as it's accessible on any computer with internet access and it also has the ability to export files in a variety of common formats. However, I have experienced abnormalities when exporting to Microsoft formats or when copy/pasting from Microsoft into Google Docs. When going between Google Docs and Microsoft (and probably other formats too; I just don't have experience with that), be sure to give your content a quick check to make sure that everything came through OK. I've had weird formatting issues like font inconsistencies and special characters not rendering correctly.

Being able to track a document's history can be *extremely* important, especially when collaborating. It allows everyone to see who made changes when, and exactly what those changes were. I've been in situations where someone accidentally deleted content, and Google Docs' version tracking allowed us to easily find and re-add it. It's also helpful just for tracking a document's progress from the initial draft to the final version, and seeing how everyone contributed to it.

For any document that multiple people will be working on, it's helpful to have formatting guidelines in place so that everyone can keep it consistent. However (as mentioned above, in Point 2), when exporting to other formats or copy/pasting into Docs from other software, it's possible for formatting inconsistencies to pop up, so always be sure to check your content when moving between document formats. The most common problems I've had have been font inconsistencies, but I've also run into special characters not rendering properly as well as spacing issues.

Etiquette? Yes, please! If you hop into a document and see that someone else is already working in it, be sure to check with them—the built-in chat tool makes it easy. It's polite just let let them know that you're there and working on it too, but it can also be helpful to check on what other people are doing and/or what sections they're working on. That way, you can avoid stepping on each other's toes and interfering with each other's updates.

If you are working with a mixed platform of content creators (i.e Google Docs and Microsoft Word) bear in mind that the two products may not mesh well. That said it is workable there are just some additional hurdles you will need to overcome. For example each product saves in its own format and the collaboration feature will not work cross platform.

You should consider interoperability with your key suppliers and customers... Will they be happy to adopt Google docs with you?