Frequently asked questions about Live Writer

The following points answer commonly asked questions about Live Writer. For any other questions, please drop us a line at info@instacoll.com

What Is Live Writer?

Live Writer is Word Processing for the Internet Generation – a powerful web-enabled document application that provides for every part of the document lifecycle that can be used on the desktop or on the browser and whether you are online or offline .

What Does It Do?

Live Writer integrates flexible authoring, intelligent asset management, secure delivery and analytics tools in a single on demand application. Live Writer allows you to quickly create stunning documents, store, organize, tag and search your documents, collaborate with your colleagues, securely share your documents online or offline and measure the results, all in one integrated environment.

When Will Live Writer Be Available?

Live Writer is available to everyone right now. You can sign up for a free account today.

How Much Does Live Writer Cost?

Live Writer has two price points starting at free. The free plan allows you to create 20 documents and use up to 100 MB of space on our server (whichever is lower) - you can share the documents that you create with any number of people - all of whom can view and edit it without having to pay anything. If you reach the document count or storage limit specified above, you cannot create any new documents - you have the option of either deleting documents to keep you under the specified limit or upgrading to a paid plan. To keep things simple, we offer a single paid plan of $6.99 per month that allows you to create unlimited documents subject to using a maximum of 500 MB of space on our server. For more details, please see the pricing page.

Where can I access Live Writer?

Point your browser to our website – www.live-documents.com and click on “login”. If you are not a registered user, you can sign up for a free account any time.

Does Live Writer compete with Microsoft Word?

Yes.

I already have Microsoft Word. Why should I use Live Writer?

With Live Writer, you can:

• Access your documents on the web using any common browser
• View and edit your documents from anywhere at any time in your browser in a rich user interface that provides the functionality and responsiveness that you expect in your familiar desktop applications.
• Easily share your documents with your colleagues and contacts
• Make documents from anywhere without having to worry about Word version compatibility
• Track changes made to your document at a slide level - no need to upload or download entire documents each time anyone makes a change.

Does Live Writer have all the features of Microsoft Word?

While we are not focused on blindly replicating all the features of Word , Live Writer has most, if not, all of the capabilities of Microsoft Word. Live Writer takes documents to the next level - embracing the capabilities of the Internet without giving up the comfort of the desktop.

Where are my documents kept?

Live Writer keeps your resources secure and available with the help of Amazon's S3 Internet Storage .

What if I want greater security and privacy for my documents?

We offer a server version that allows you to host our application inside your enterprise premises. Contact us at sales@instacoll.com for details about this version.

How do I share a document with others?

Click on the “Share” button and add the email address of the person with whom you would like to share the document. You also have the option to make documents “public” in which case any body can view the document – all you have to do is share the link that appears in the browser toolbar.

Can multiple people work on a document at the same time?

Absolutely, any number of people can work on a document simultaneously – you can see updates coming into your document in real-time without having to do anything manually like save or refresh.

When multiple people are editing a document together, how are conflicts avoided?

Live Writer tracks and updates content at a paragraph level, so the possibility of conflicts is quite small. In the event that multiple people make changes to the same paragraph at the same time, it operates on a “last-save wins” mechanism and the person whose changes were made last appears in the document. However, you can revert such changes at any point of time by clicking on the “Revisions” button on the slide thumbnail where you can see all the versions – from this screen, you can revert to any previous version that you wish.

What operating systems Does Live Writer Support?

The browser version of Live Writer will run in any browser on any platform that supports Adobe's Flash Player 9 plugin . This means Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Netscape, and Opera on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

What kinds of document formats does Live Writer support?

• IMAGES
• JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg)
• PNG (.png)
• GIF (.gif)
• FLASH
• SWF (.swf)
• VIDEO
• Flash Video (.flv)
• MICROSOFT WORD
• Word 97-2003 document (.doc)
• Word 2007 (.docx)
• OPEN OFFICE WRITER
• Open Office Writer document (.odt)

In addition, you can export documents to a number of formats:

• IMAGES
• JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg)
• PNG (.png)
• GIF (.gif)
• TIFF (.tiff)
• PORTABLE DOCUMENT FORMAT
• PDF (.pdf)
• MICROSOFT WORD
• Word 97-2003 document (.doc)
• OPEN OFFICE WRITE
• Open Office Write document (.odt)

Please note that the export feature is available only to the author of a document and to the users to whom the author has granted "Clone" privileges - this check is in place to ensure that people with whom you share your document respect the permissions and privacy policy that you have specified for a document.

Are there any upload limits?

Each document you upload (import) into Live Writer should be less than 10 MB. This limit will be raised further in future.

Can I create a document from scratch in Live Writer?

Yes, you can create a new document from scratch. Click on the "Create New Document" button on the dashboard or from the documents list at any point of time and get started.

Can an existing document be edited?

Live Writer offers the full range of editing capabilities. All of your documents can be edited.

Can everyone access my Live Writer documents?

The documents you create (or import into) Live Writer are all by default private. They will be accessible only to you and are protected by your Live Writer ID / password authentication. You can optionally share your document to other users by entering their e-mail addresses in the "Share" tab in the document listing at any point of time. You can specify what each person can do with the document.

Can I delete my documents?

Yes, you can. You can delete a document from the document list by enabling the delete checkbox and clicking on delete. Please note that once you delete your document, the desktop versions of the document are rendered inaccessible as well.

Can I share a document with my friends/colleagues? Can they edit my document?

Yes, you can share your document with others. And they can edit document as well (provide you have given them edit permission).

What formatting text options does Live Writer offer?

Live Writer offers many text formatting options. You can bold, italicize, change font type, increase/decrease letter size, indent etc. You can also use named styles to organize your document formatting.

Can I embed images from my desktop into a document?

Yes, you can. Click on the "Insert Image" icon from the Live Writer toolbar to select an image from your desktop. Once the image is uploaded, you can move and resize it as per your requirements.In the desktop version, you can also drag and drop any image into a documents.

Can I include bulleted/numbered lists?

Yes

Can shapes/flowcharts be inserted/created?

Yes. Live Writer has a wide variety of shapes & symbols from which you can choose from.

I want to use my own fonts in Live Writer - how do I do that?

To add fonts to Live Writer, send us the font file by email - fonts@instacoll.com and we can explore adding the new font to the available list.

Is Live Writer available in other languages?

Currently, it's available in English only. We plan to add more languages in the future.