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Looks are everything: Zoho advances Writer 2.0 user interface

Zoho on Thursday announced the latest rev of its word processing program, Zoho Writer 2.0, and the biggest change is a tab motif that looks pretty useful.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

Zoho on Thursday announced the latest rev of its word processing program, Zoho Writer 2.0, and the biggest change is a tab motif that looks pretty useful. Think a cross between Google's Chrome browser and Microsoft Office's Ribbon.  

The tabbed theme of Zoho Writer will be adopted by the laundry list of Zoho's applications, which include everything from spreadsheets to CRM suites. 

What's interesting here is that Zoho is paying a lot of attention to the user interface (statement, screenshot gallery). Many Web applications look limited by the browser. By giving a nod to the user interface, Zoho appears to be signaling that it has to compete with both online and offline applications. And to compete your apps have to look good. Interface doesn't matter much to the techies, but the rest of us like a little eye candy. Zoho appears to be delivering the sweets.

Specifically, Zoho Writer 2.0 has a "MenuTab design," which results in a clean toolbar. The toolbar includes tabs for format, insert, review, share, views and page setup tabs. 

In many respects it looks like a cross between Google's Chrome Browser and Microsoft Office's Ribbon set-up. Random thought: Why doesn't Google just buy Zoho and use it for Google Apps?

Here are a few screenshots:

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