A longtime user of Proton’s version of secure, encrypted Mail, Proton Drive storage, as well as the original Google Docs (even before Google acquired it), I was pleased to see this announcement:
What? Proton now adds word processor to their stable of products? Great! I can’t tell you how annoying it was to put up with people complaining on Mastodon about me using Google Docs. While I tried other alternatives, Google Docs/Sheets reigns supreme with all the relevant privacy concerns.
A Simple Interface
As you can see, you can download your document in several formats. What a pleasant surprise to see Markdown as one of them! Given that I use markdown format all day, every day, I may find myself using Proton Docs as a way to convert from other formats to markdown. Of course, those other tools have their own ways of getting content into Markdown:
A Comparison Chart
To test it out, I whipped out this quick table. I love the simple interface Proton Docs brings to table creation. The table you see below was a “Download as…Markdown” from Proton Docs…the result didn’t look this clean. I had to press [enter] at the start of each row to get it to display, and there appear to be some characters (\n) embedded. So, that needs some work.
| Features | Proton Docs | Google Docs |
|---|---|---|
| End-to-End Encryption | Yes\n\n | No |
| Offline Editing | No\n\n | No\n\n |
| Real-Time Collaboration | Yes\n\n | Yes\n\n |
| Document Size Limit | 25 MB\n\n | Not specified |
| Storage Space | 5 GB free, paid plans available\n\n | 15 GB free, paid plans available |
| Font Support | Limited\n\n | Limited\n\n |
| Grammar and Spelling Tools | No\n\n | Yes, but inferior to Microsoft Word\n\n |
| Table Creation and Editing | Yes, with various features\n\n | Yes, but with some limitations\n\n |
| Privacy Focus | High, with end-to-end encryption\n\n | Low, data accessible by Google |
| Integration | Part of Proton Drive\n\n | Part of Google Drive\n\n |
| Free, with paid storage plans\n\n | ||
| User Interface | Similar to Google Docs, but with Proton’s style\n\n | User-friendly and accessible\n\n |
Here’s what it looks like in Proton:
Sharing Proton Docs
Sharing is a cinch, too. What I hoped was that a Proton Docs document would not require the other person to have a Proton account to edit. So I shared my chart one of my other email (Gmail) accounts, but as you can see, an account is required (just like Google):
This word processor really comes across as a web-based editor more than a word processor. The reason why is that when I hit print, I get a URL splashed at the bottom of the page like a footer. To get a real print, I have to export it as a PDF, and that causes the table to lose some of its color. You can see a more colorful version online:
Still, all that aside, it appears the word processor will do the job.