This is the second post on TextFlow in my research into collaborative document co-authoring products and services. For the first, see TextFlow: Overview.

Yesterday I signed up for a TextFlow account. To signup, you have to “Buy” either the Professional Edition ($99 per year) or the Personal Edition (free, but with watermarks). I chose the Personal Edition in the first instance.

A couple of comments:
– You have to give the standard things … name, email address, and a password.
– There is a 10 character hard limit on the password, and that annoys me. My standard password is 13 characters long, meaning that I have to remember a different one just for TextFlow. I don’t like that. I agree there should be a minimum number, but not a maximum … or at least not a maximum of only 10. Perhaps 25. (Note that within 30 minutes of signing up, after I logged out to test something, when asked for my password, I entered my standard one, completely forgetting about the special one I was forced to create.)
– When you sign up, you have to verify your account via clicking a link in an email. You have 72 hours to do so, or your new account is locked and then deleted.
– After signing up and verifying your email address, you work within the browser edition of TextFlow. There’s a box on the right hand side inviting you to download the “desktop version”.

So all in all, apart from one annoyance about the password length, it’s painless.