What is the experience of Microsoft Office users moving to Google Docs?


Microsoft Office has been an enterprise software of choice for over 2 decades.  Long term users have seen Office evolve from its early days when it was installed on Windows machines to the relatively new Office 365 that is deployed online.  The key products in the Microsoft Office suite used by enterprises have been Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Google Docs is also an enterprise offering that consists of Docs, Sheets and Slides - these map to the corresponding Microsoft Office suite products listed.  Users who have been on Microsoft Office for many years find the move to Google Docs difficult.  This is because the commands across Google Docs are quite different to Office and one needs to spend time searching for MS office equivalent commands.  For example, the keyboard shortcut command to insert a freeze pane in windows excel is not the same in Google Sheets.  Formulae in cells and data analysis in Sheets is also different in sheets when compared to Excel. While it takes some time to unlearn commands and learn new ones as one moves from Microsoft Office to Google Docs, once one has spent some time working with Google Docs it starts to get easier.  And features such as ease of collaboration, never losing any content ever again, being able to work on the go from anywhere become the norm.  In summary, a user who has worked on Office for many years may find it difficult in the beginning but users who start with Google Docs will be comfortable from the beginning.