Can a chromebook be setup for use as an offline word processor?

[jasoncrcsd]

We have an offsite for students that have bahavioral issues and the staff want a device that the user can only type papers and save them to a USB drive. No internet of any kind. Can I do this with a chromebook? I considered managed guest sesson in some way but locked to Google docs they can stil,share documents etc. This may not be possible but thought I'd ask.

When we had more windows machines I would just set them up and login as admin and disable the network interfaces and give them a local non admin account for this purpose.

[mhermmsd]

You could have the managed guest session, but in the URL blocking in guest session, just block HTTPS://*  and HTTP://* .  This will block all internet.  In the URL Exceptions, you could put in the path to docs so student could still create a document.  This is how I set up my LMC kiosks so kids can only go to library links and not navigate anywhere else.

Otherwise, in some of our testing environments, I restrict login to the chromebook and just put this as a kiosk app.  Very stripped down text editor that allows saving to thumb drive.  https://educ.io/extensions/shiny

[jasoncrcsd]

I thought of that but does that still allow them to share those documents? In this case these students are using the Notify people message to send inappropriate and even threatening messages.

[Kim_Nilsson]

Yes, but that's a separate issue, with its own (partial) solution.

Drive Trust Rules lets you restrict who they can share with.

However, AFAIK, there's no way to restrict commenting in a Docs file, making it semi-pointless.

But, there are alternatives!

Text - decent local editor

Text Editor - more advanced local tex editor, at least I think it's local.

[mpartenope4676]

We have been using the Text app since Google+ still existed and you suggested it there. Recently, when the app opens, the  font defaults to a huge size. Has anyone else experienced this? I'm going to try the others you recommended, but I've been having trouble finding text editors that are apps so that they can be pinned to the shelf. We use this for students with testing accommodations who are allowed word processing but NOT allowed spell check. It's disruptive to their testing to have them have to change the font multiplied by 20 regents students in a room. The testing coordinator is stressed enough and I don't need her to transfer that energy to me. hehe

[Kim_Nilsson]

Do reach out to the app developer about that font size thing.

Pretty much anything that's accessible on the internet can be turned into an "app", and then pinned. Use the web-icon in Chrome Apps/Extensions admin section and add the address to whatever you want.

[Kim_Nilsson]

Or this super basic editor!

https://www.pcworld.com/article/439696/turn-any-browser-tab-into-a-basic-text-editor.html

Which is just a line of code in the address field.

You can create a bookmark out of it, and then push that bookmark to users' accounts.