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Google Docs

247 'Google Docs' stories May 2011 - August 2018
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Google Docs originated from web-based word processor Writely. The app would lay the groundwork for such common features as collaborative text editing. Eventually acquired by Google, it was made available to all Google Apps users in February of 2007.

The marquee feature of Docs is the ability to collaborate with a wide number of people online. Controls help determine who can see, comment, and edit documents. In its current form, Docs is an HTML5 app that runs on most modern browsers and even has support for rudimentary viewing on mobile. Its Android and iOS apps are quite powerful and gives users access to the same web functionality.

On Chrome, Docs works offline and allows users to work without an internet connection and have changes synced backed up to the cloud. An Add-ons feature allows third-party developers to add extra functionality like a thesaurus and a bibliography creator.

Google preps Classroom, Drive updates, more VR, & ARCore on Chromebook tablets for new school year

Avatar for Abner Li Aug 7 2018 - 9:18 am PT
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Google Education ISTE 2019

With the new school year almost underway, Google is launching a number of education features across its products. Many were announced earlier this year and are coming out of beta, including a big revamp to Google Classroom, formating updates for Google Docs, and a suite of new AR/VR features.


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Google Drive

Google Slides adds support for inserting slides into Google Docs, new guides and rulers, more

Avatar for Justin Duino Apr 18 2018 - 8:58 pm PT
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To better compete with Microsoft Office, Google is continually adding new features to its suite of apps within Google Drive. This time around, Google Slides is getting an update that adds new guides and rulers to make it easier to format a slide, the ability to add a single slide and place it into a Google Doc, and more.


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Google Docs, Sheets and Slides get new features for enterprise and education users

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Aug 16 2017 - 9:04 am PT
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G Suite

Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are getting notable updates today with a handful of new features specifically designed to improve the experience for both enterprise and education G Suite users. Among the features, the apps are getting new collaboration and organization tools, customizable templates with built-in add-ons, and enhanced search capabilities via Google Cloud Search integration.


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PSA: It’s now easier to make a Google Doc from a template via Google Drive

Avatar for Stephen Hall Jan 30 2017 - 1:51 pm PT
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You’ve long been able to quickly create a Google Doc from within Google Drive, but if your intention was to create a Google Doc from one of Google’s many readily-available templates, that required a few more annoying clicks. Now, Google is adding a button to Google Drive that lets you hope right on over to the template selection page to save you some time…


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Ability to download individual Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides for offline editing now rolling out

Avatar for Abner Li Apr 18 2016 - 6:17 pm PT
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In 2013, Google Drive addressed one of the biggest advantages of Microsoft Office: offline access and editing. With this feature enabled, Docs, Slides, and Sheets effectively becomes a native application. An update starting today will allow users to select specific files to store and edit without an internet connection.


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Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, & Slides will soon let you set expiration dates for document access

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Mar 15 2016 - 11:01 am PT
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Google is adding the ability to set expiration dates for access to documents across Google Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides apps. The idea is that you can limit a contributor’s access to a  document for a specific time period, which Google points out will come in handy for companies and organizations that often share files with third-parties temporarily:


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Google Docs adds ‘outline tool’ for easier document navigation on Android & web

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Mar 9 2016 - 12:05 pm PT
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Google is rolling out a new feature for Google Docs on Android and the web today that will make navigating through long documents much easier. The new “outline tool” adds a new pane on the left of the page adds quickly links to the document’s headers so you can quickly jump to that section without having to scroll through the whole document to get there.

Displayed in a pane to the left of the page, the outline features headers for each section of your document, making it simple to quickly jump from section to section. If you haven’t manually applied headers, no worries—we’ll do it for you, intelligently detecting the logical divisions within your work. You can then edit or remove these headers as necessary.

And there’s also a second component to it that lets users scroll through documents easier with a new “navigation handle” that will appear once you start to scroll. “Touching that handle will display the entire document’s structure, allowing you quickly skip from section to section, instead of slowly swiping up and down.”

Here’s a look at the feature in action:

DocsNavigationWidget-GfW(1)

Look out for the feature in Google Docs on Android and the web starting today.

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Google Docs apps add much-needed iPad Pro support, but still lack iOS 9 multitasking

Avatar for Zac Hall Mar 8 2016 - 10:08 am PT
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Google Docs

Google is on a roll lately with readying its iOS apps for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro announced last September and released last November.

Google’s YouTube app gained native resolution two weeks ago, but lacked iOS 9 multitasking features like Split View and Picture-in-Picture, then yesterday we saw Google Photos update with iPad Pro support in an update that actually includes Split View and Slide Over features.

Now it’s the Google Docs apps turn, at least to start, as the latest version of Google Docs for iOS adds native resolution support for the iPad Pro.


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‘Documents for Android Wear’ lets you view Google Docs and PDFs on your watch [Video]

Avatar for Stephen Hall Jan 19 2016 - 10:24 am PT
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document viewer android wear

A new app called Document Viewer for Android Wear was recently released by appfour, and you’re probably either excited or rolling your eyes. I’m definitely in the latter category. But then again, most times developers have tried to take apps that typically require a decently sized screen and shrink them to the size of teeny tiny Android Wear, the results haven’t been great. I’m looking at you, emulators that are definitely cool–proofs–of–concept-but-completely-impractical.

This one may not be as ridiculous as running a PSP game, but I’d say—and I mean absolutely no offense to appfour—it’s very unlikely to become an app you use daily…


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Updates arrive for Google Docs & Sheets for Android, Drive on the web

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Nov 13 2015 - 8:11 am PT
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Google is rolling out updates this week for Google Docs and Sheets for Android as well as Google Drive on the web, the company announced in two separate blog posts today.

For Sheets, the update brings the ability to “add new and reply to existing comments,” while the updated Google Docs for Android app gets the ability to see suggestions and comments when in the app’s Print Layout view. “resolve, close, accept, or reject those comments and suggestions—making it simpler to move between their desktop and mobile devices.”

exp1-recomGoogle also highlighted improvements to editing charts in the Sheets app on Android:

…if a user a selects a single cell and inserts a chart, we’ll automatically expand that data selection to include the immediately surrounding cells. This will make it easier for users to create robust charts with relevant information. In addition, when an employee creates a new chart, they’ll now see three recommended chart types, which we’ll suggest based on the data they’ve selected.

And lastly for Sheets, users will start to notice the 400 new fonts Google began rolling out to Sheets on the web this week.

As for Google Drive, the web app gets improved organization with new smarter sorting in the app’s ‘Recent’ view:

The new sorting experience removes the existing sorting dropdown options (‘Last modified,’ ‘Last modified by me,’ and ‘Last opened by me’) and replaces them with a dynamically-generated view based on the actions of the person using Drive. Items will continue to be segmented into time-based sections (‘Today,’ ‘Earlier this week,’ etc), and will now indicate whether each item was opened, modified, or uploaded by the user directly in the UI. The smarter sorting ensures that items acted upon by the user are more likely to be shown than items acted upon by other collaborators.

The updated Google Sheets and Docs apps are rolling out now.

Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Keep get new features on Android

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Oct 28 2015 - 2:07 pm PT
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Google-Keep-drawing

Google is today rolling out updates to its Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Keep apps that add a handful of new features for Android users.

First up, the Sheets app now allows users to view more content on the screen by automatically hiding “toolbars and headers so that you can see more of your content on the screen at one time.” And you’ll notice the toolbars and headers reappear when you sign to scroll up or zoom out.


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Google now eats Google Apps fees for switchers w/ previous enterprise agreements

Avatar for Stephen Hall Oct 19 2015 - 11:00 am PT
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According to a post made on the Google for Work blog this morning, Google is now giving enterprises a new opportunity to try Google Docs. Google knows that many enterprises likely have previous enterprise agreements with other companies that would make trying out Docs for their organizations difficult, so the company is now offering to pay the usual Google Apps fees until those contracts run out:

In fact, we’re so confident that Docs has all the features you need, without the ones you don’t, that we’re making it even easier to give it a try. If you’re worried about switching to Docs because you still have an enterprise agreement (EA) with another provider, we’ll cover the fees of Google Apps until your contract runs out. We’ll even chip in on some of the deployment costs and set you up for success with one of our Google for Work Partners.

Google says that once your enterprise agreement is runs out, companies can sign up on a simple contract “with no traps or gotchas,” and that many businesses find that Google Apps is cheaper, as well. The company, additionally, points out that many of the features that businesses think are missing from Google Docs are actually present, and that more and more useful tools are being added constantly.

Businesses can head over to the Google Apps‘ website to learn more.

Google Drive clocks out early, service disruption impacts Docs + other apps [Updated]

Avatar for Zac Hall Oct 9 2015 - 12:45 pm PT
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Google Drive outage

Update: Google says all services are restored!

Seeing Google Drive and other services unresponsive this afternoon? Rest assured that it’s not just you. Google has acknowledged the service disruption on its app status page with this message posted within the hour:

We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google Drive. We will provide more information shortly.


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Google Docs gains speech to text, new templates, smart sheets, more

Avatar for Tom Maxwell Sep 2 2015 - 12:01 pm PT
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Screen Shot 2015-09-02 at 1.57.36 PM

Update: Two other minor updates targeted to business customers have also been included. Text inside a Sheets cell can now be partially formatted, rather than formatting all the text to one font style (i.e. italics), and Google’s fonts are preserved when opening a Docs or Sheets file in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.

Google has today pushed a bunch of new features and general improvements to its Docs suite of web-based productivity apps. It’s the beginning of the school year so it’s no surprise that the company’s post on the changes is targeted towards teachers, but anyone using Docs will benefit.


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