The Google Docs editing UI is quite adequate, export to PDF / OpenOffice / Word is wonderful, and the collaboration stuff is strong but why cannot we produce modestly sane HTML or attach custom stylesheets?

Joho the Blog (in March 2007):

I've been using Google Docs to write documents that are collaborative. It's a good first gen product, and I enjoy using it, but it would take a giant step forward if it let me apply a CSS style sheet to the docs I'm composing.

No shit. This is such an obvious idea that there must be something obviously wrong with it.

Joho the Blog continues...

This is such an obvious idea that there must be something obviously wrong with it.

Jinks!

Let me have a single URL box on the document and group settings page. Take whatever I put in there and stuff it in a in the head. At the very least, if I happen to plop something like that in via Edit HTML, let it through your sanitizer. And don't even start on about and not being valid in the - the generated HTML is such a complete mess that a minor offense like that is the least of your worries. Look at this (from a preview of a document):

You have a better chance at validity from /dev/random.

I'm sure there's all kinds of scripting vulnerabilities we're worried about here but right now I'm just trying to Get Stuff Done and this is killing me.

What are some alternatives? I stopped reading TechCrunch but there has to be at least ten fairly mature browser based word processors out there by now. I like jottit's URLs and overall simplicity but I also need the WYSIWG and I like being able to go out to .pdf, .doc, and .odt. But forget all that, is there anybody in this space that gives a shit about the HTML being generated? Let's start there.