While Google Docs is brilliant, the only issue is that you need an active Internet connection to create new Office documents in Google Docs as well as for editing /reading old files that already exist in your Google account.

That’s a problem because, unless you use something like Google Gears, you won’t have access to your Google documents while you are in an airplane or are using an old computer that has Microsoft Office but no Internet connection.

Download Google Documents for Offline Use

Therefore the best option is that you download a copy of all your documents, PDFs, etc. from Google Docs and put them on a local hard-drive or USB stick so that you can at least read them which you are in offline mode.

While there are third-party tools that let you easily download Google Documents to the local drive in one go, the good news is that the batch export feature is now available in Google Docs by default so you don’t have to hunt for external tools to help you do so.

Select Google Documents for Exporting