Quip Review - Collaborative Productivity Solution for Your Team

very good
key review info
  • Application: Quip 4.0.1
  • Reviewed on:
application features
  • Allows your entire team to work on the same document or spreadsheet at the same time
  • (2 more, see all...)

The Quip online platform provides tools for creating and editing documents, spreadsheets, and lists in the cloud, but also integrates instant messaging functionalities. The Quip desktop client enables you to access the service without having to use a web browser.

The Quip collaborative platform has been around for quite some time, but the focus has been mostly on mobile devices (iPhones and iPads). Until now, if you had to access your Quip projects on the desktop, you could only do it with the help of an Internet browser.

The Quip desktop clients (Mac and Windows) aim to close the circle by enabling you to manage the cloud content in a resource friendly environment. The application emulates the same web console design, so if you have been using the service previously, you should not have any issues.

Register with any email address and get the subscription plan that fits you best

To start using the Quip service, you need to register for an account by using your email address. Depending on the email hosting provider, the procedure can be different.

However, it is important to verify your email immediately after creating the account: in the case of Yahoo email addresses, you can go through the registration procedure multiple times with the same address until the account is verified, which can generate some confusion.

The Quip main window where you can view your contacts and organize your documents into various folders
The Quip main window where you can view your contacts and organize your documents into various folders

By default, your account will be enrolled in the Quip basic plan, which comes with limited group usage, but will enable you to create shared folders, and allows you to access Quip from the desktop, from your iPhone, or using your tablet. For more advanced functions, you can upgrade your subscription plan by paying a monthly fee.

Also worth mentioning are the capabilities specifically aimed at business or enterprise clients: user management functions, the possibility to create a custom team URL, extensive document recovery options, the right to form more than one team, more sophisticated security measures, and so on.

Add team members  manually or use the web console to import contacts from the address books associated with other accounts

Quip revolves around two primary functions: instant communication and the possibility to work on text documents and spreadsheets with your entire team, at the same time. Naturally, you must start by adding members to your team: just insert their email addresses.

This is where the desktop app and the web console begin to differ: in the Quip desktop client you seem to be able to view only the contacts that have enrolled in the service. The web version will list all the contacts added by the users, regardless of them being registered with Quip or not.

At the same time, if you want to quickly import contacts from your Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, or Outlook address books, this is possible only by using the Quip web console.

The Quip chat rooms where you can communicate with multiple users at the same time and share media content
The Quip chat rooms where you can communicate with multiple users at the same time and share media content

Similarly, although through the web you get support for importing or uploading documents from or to other cloud services, such as Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, or Basecamp, on the desktop side you must manually navigate to the respective folders.

What’s more, the platform automatically generates a My Team Chat room for each account, which is synced to all connected users. When working with large teams, this can produce numerous chat rooms with the same name, so feel free to rename or even delete them if necessary.

Manage and edit documents in the cloud and see the modifications performed by other users in real time

As far as text editing goes, Quip delivers essential capabilities mostly: you can create paragraphs, headlines of various sizes, or bulleted, numbered, and checkbox lists. In addition, you get to insert images, spreadsheets, mentions, comments, links, or code blocks.

Each document can be shared with anyone you like using a direct link, or you can move it to a shared folder and allow multiple collaborators to perform changes. Moreover, thanks to the desktop notifications integration, you are instantly alerted about each change.

The Quip collaboration platform enables you to edit documents and view modifications performed by other users in real time
The Quip collaboration platform enables you to edit documents and view modifications performed by other users in real time

However, the document editor lacks elementary functions, such as the possibility to change the text alignment, a word and a characters counter, a built-in dictionary (even though the spell checking is automatically enabled), and so on.

The documents created and edited in Quip can be exported to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, or PDF files. The text formatting is preserved in the first two cases, but during our tests the spacing in a PDF document was off.


The Good

Quip brings to the table a productivity solution that syncs to the cloud but also allows you to work offline, and can help you deal with everyday tasks regardless of whether you are in front of your Mac or you are working on your mobile device.

The Quip platform also enables you to keep your team members connected and offers you the possibility to collaboratively work on the same file, without losing track of all the modifications.

All these functions can be accessed via the native Quip desktop client application that requires fewer resources than a full featured web browser: on a dual-core 2.4GHz iMac with 6GB RAM the CPU usage while editing or chatting stayed below 20%, while the RAM consumption lingered at about 400MB.

The Bad

On the downside, the editing functions offered by Quip are quite limited: you can use the built-in themes to refine the document’s appearance, but at the end of the day you might have to use a third-party editor to deal with more complex formatting tasks.

Furthermore, the Quip desktop client fails to emulate some capabilities offered by the web console when dealing with contacts or importing and uploading files to and from other cloud services. As a result, under certain circumstances you will still have to use Quip's web interface.

The Truth

Bottom line, if you are looking for a stress-free solution to keep lists and other casual information synced on all your devices without having to deal with various cloud tools or file management systems, Quip is definitely worth your while.

On the other hand, if you are planning to work with large teams, manage numerous contacts, and want to produce complex documentation files, you might find yourself needing additional software on top of what Quip has to offer.

user interface 5
features 4
ease of use 3
pricing / value 4


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
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Photo Gallery (10 Images)

The Quip main window where you can view your contacts and organize your documents into various foldersWithin the Quip user interface you can instantly sent messages to any contact that has also registered for an accountThe Quip collaboration platform enables you to edit documents and view modifications performed by other users in real timeThe Quip document editor offers you the possibility to insert images and manage their position in the documentWithin the Quip documents you can also add spreadsheets, checklists, hyperlinks, code blocks, and more
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