Wouldn't it be great if you could combine the best of Microsoft Office and Google Docs? Imagine the feature set and usability of Office with the ability of Google Docs to store documents in the cloud and share them. With Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, that's exactly what you get. This free add-in for Microsoft Office, which hails from Google, lets you save your Office documents to Google Docs, where you can use them as you would normally.

After you install the software, it runs as its own toolbar at the top of Office. When you want to save a document to Google Docs, simply click Sync, and it saves the file, and then syncs it automatically every time you save. If you want, you can change that syncing behavior, and having Google Cloud Connect sync only when you manually tell it to.

You can also use the Google Cloud Connect toolbar to share a document that you've saved to Google Docs. Click the Share button and a dialog box opens that lets you share your document. You can use Google Cloud Connect with multiple Google Doc accounts; simply switch from one to the other. There are a few limitations, though. You can't use multiple accounts simultaneously, and you can't open a document stored on Google Docs from directly within Office.

There's no simpler way to combine the power of Microsoft Office and Google Docs than Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office--and you can get it for free.

Note: This link takes you to this software's page at Google, where you can automatically install the file onto your system.

--Preston Gralla