Google Docs vs. Microsoft Word for Writers: Which is Better for Drafting and Getting Feedback on Your Book Manuscript?

If you're writing a book, you may have asked yourself, “Should I use Google Docs or Microsoft Word?” Maybe you’re drafting solo. Maybe you’re starting to think about feedback. Either way, a writer’s software program matters.

In this post, I’ll compare Docs and Word, the two most common word-processing applications authors use, to see how they stack up—both for writing on your own and for sharing your work to get meaningful feedback.

(A quick note: while Microsoft Word can be used collaboratively via OneDrive and Microsoft 365, in my experience—and that of many writers I work with—the setup is unintuitive, glitchy, and less streamlined than Google Docs. Similarly, Google Docs has an offline mode, but users commonly report difficulties, and that mode is not available in all browsers. For this comparison, I’ll treat Google Docs as the cloud-based collaboration tool and Microsoft Word as the offline-first option, based on how most writers actually use them when drafting or working with an editor.)

Writing Solo: What Writers Need Most Early On

The early stages of writing call for accessibility (so that you keep writing), intuitive organizational tools (so that you keep track of the quickly expanding amounts of writing), and a system that doesn’t get in the way. Google Docs has an edge on Word in this context.

Google Docs: Easy, Intuitive, and Great for Momentum

The following features make achieving progress on early drafts easy in Google Docs:

• Live saving and easy, free access: Everything auto-saves and syncs across devices without extra setup required. You can open your draft from your laptop, tablet, or phone. It also costs nothing and is ready to use if you have a Google account, say for Gmail.

• Simple outline and tab feature: Both Word and Docs offer a document outline sidebar (in Word it’s called the navigation pane), but the Docs version is more straightforward and offers a “Document tabs” feature that’s great for saving excerpted sections of writing you’re not ready to delete or that you know are necessary but that don’t have a place in the main text yet. Located to the left of the main text in Docs, the excerpts remain visible so that you don’t forget about them and can access them quickly.

• Convenient version history: Docs has a built-in version history, making it easy to quickly go back to a previous way of saying something.

MS Word: Ready for Later-Stage Heavy-Lifting and Complexity

The following features make Microsoft Word best for longer, more complex manuscripts and final formatting needs:

• Advanced formatting: Styles, sections, endnotes, front and back matter—Word handles all easily with more nuance.

• Offline reliability: Depending on the quality of internet connection, Docs can struggle to keep up when manuscripts become tens of thousands of words long, causing scrolling and typing delays. Word makes it easy to work offline in this situation as well as in the rare occasions when you don’t have internet access, or if you’ve temporarily cut off internet access to limit distractions.

• Agility with large manuscripts: Word’s more advanced navigation pane and table of contents features make finding and keeping track of things in a long, complex manuscript easier.

Time for Feedback: What Writers Need for Effective Collaboration

Whether you’re planning to share your work with a beta reader, writing group, editor, writing coach, or proofreader, your writing software also needs to support all levels of collaboration. As we saw above, while Google Docs makes early-stage book drafting more intuitive and accessible, Word’s more advanced formatting and organizational features prove the smarter choice as your manuscript grows. Word also wins out when it comes to later-stage collaborations.

Google Docs: Great for Fast Back-and-Forth Exchanges and Revising in Real Time

The following features make Google Docs great if you’re working closely with a writing partner or coach, exchanging multiple drafts as the manuscript evolves:

• Live commenting and suggestions: You can be on the phone with a collaborator and see each other add sentences or highlight sections in the document as you discuss them.

• Smooth sharing: You and your collaborator access the document via the same link, which means no attachments and no “Oops, I worked on the wrong version.”

• Shared version history: You both can see every revision and comment each contributor has made and jump back to a previous version quickly and easily.

MS Word: Great for In-Depth Editing, Large Numbers of Tracked Changes, and Publisher Submission

The following features make Word great if you’ve hired a professional editor to copy edit, line edit, developmental edit, or proofread your manuscript. It’s also the right choice if your end goal is submission to a publisher:

• Publishing industry standard: It’s worth stating up front that if you plan to submit your manuscript to a publisher, Word is usually the required format.

• Option to view and make changes in “No Markup” and “Simple Markup” modes: This is one of the biggest reasons professional editors prefer Word over Docs. Word lets you easily toggle between and make changes to modes that show all tracked changes and that show what the document would look like if all tracked changes were accepted. A heavy line or copy edit—or a hands-on developmental edit with major restructuring—can produce a dizzying number of changes. Tracked changes allow you as the author to review every edit, but they can make the manuscript almost unreadable. Editors often make multiple passes through a draft to ensure quality, and being able to view and continue to make changes to the clean edited version makes that process faster, more thorough, and more cost-effective. Toggling to “No Markup” or “Simple Markup” mode also lets you as the author preview how the manuscript will read with all edits accepted before committing to them. Docs offers a way to preview accepted changes, but it’s more cumbersome to access and you can’t continue to make changes in that mode.

• Ability to track moved text: If you move a paragraph, say a few pages down in a chapter, Docs just shows this as a deletion in the old location and then an addition in the new location. This can be misleading, especially for clients sensitive to major cuts, requiring the editor to leave a comment explaining that the text has not been deleted, only reorganized. Word handles text relocation more gracefully: it automatically marks moved text with a different color and double lines, clearly indicating it was relocated, not deleted outright.

• Ability to track changes after moving text: Because Word designates the relocated text as a relocation and not a new addition written by the editor, Word’s track changes function can still indicate any changes the editor makes to the text in its new location. Docs treats the entire block of moved text as a new addition written by the editor, making it impossible to track any further changes to the author’s original wording. 

My Advice as an Editor and Writing Coach

To sum up, Google Docs works great for the early stages of drafting when you need an easy, free place to get your thoughts down. Likewise, if you work closely with a writing coach or other collaborator early on, Google Docs makes it easy to iterate together in real time or in rapid back-and-forth exchanges.

However, if you plan to work with a professional editor and/or submit to a publisher, you’ll want to have your manuscript ready to go in Word—many require that format. Word makes formatting and heavy editing passes easier and guarantees a smoother path to publication.

No matter what stage you’re at with your book, if you’re starting to feel stuck, scattered, or unsure what’s working, that’s the perfect time to bring in a second set of eyes.

Whether you’re using Docs, Word, or a napkin and a Sharpie, I’m here to help. I provide coaching and editing support for academic nonfiction, nonfiction guides, narrative nonfiction, thought leadership projects, and memoirs as well as book proposals, query letters, and journal articles. Contact me to streamline your process and find the most effective ways to bring your best ideas to light.