Mo' betta sharing

Posted by: Bob Rose, Google Docs engineer

As a software engineer, sharing and collaborating on Google Docs is something I do all the time. There's so much to keep track of that I often create documents describing how to do things, best practices, gotchas, and references to other documents or web pages with more information. When new people join the team, these are valuable references they can use to get up and running quickly. By sharing documents across our team, people can all pitch in to keep the documents up to date, relevant, and useful.

In the past, sharing a slew of Google documents with new people was a time consuming process: open each document, select the share tab, and specify the people to share with. Now this can all be done from the documents list! Select one or more items in your Google Docs list, press the 'Share' button (or right-click and select 'Share'), enter the people to share with, add a custom message if you want, and voila -- all the documents will be shared with the new folks. And as always, you can decide if they can edit the items or just view them.

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We can't stop adding features!

Posted by: Chris Nokleberg, Google Docs engineer

We kicked off 2008 with a slew of new presentation features and your feedback is keeping us busy. Today's additions address some of the most requested features:

• Save as PDF, for when you really need to download your presentation as a file.
• PDF-based printing options (save trees and ink!). Go to File->Print, select how many slides you'd like on a page (up to 12), and preview your choice.
• Vector shapes, for your basic diagramming and drawing needs. Use block arrows to point out what's important, or say something in a call-out bubble.

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Headers and footers

Posted by: Deepak Jindal, Software Engineer

In December, we told you how we've been working hard to improve the printing features in Google Docs. Over the holidays we added another popularly requested feature: customizable headers and footers for printed documents.

To insert a header or footer into your document, click on the "Insert" tab and select "Header" or "Footer." A box surrounded by dashed lines will appear, and anything you place in that box will be repeated on each page of your printed document. This has been a highly requested feature, so we're launching it now without a lot of bells and whistles. But we're not stopping here and we'll continue to improve your printed pages in the weeks and months to come. We'd like to hear from you, so please post your comments and suggestions in our Help Group.

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Sub-sub-folders

Posted by: Olga Belomestnykh, Docs Engineer

Having read many requests to create sub-folders in Google Docs and having spent many hours building the new feature, I recently found the following note from a fellow Googler on my desk:

"Hi Olga: I have been trying for the last 79 hours to create a folder within a folder. Does 'Please try again later' mean it will work in the 80th hour?"

The answer was of course "no" -- because until now you couldn't create a folder within a folder in Google Docs. Though it's now way past the 80th hour, my co-worker need not wait any longer. As indicated by the gray triangle you may have noticed next to your folders in the All Folders view, everyone can now have folders and sub-folders and sub-sub-folders and -- you get the idea.

You can navigate your folder hierarchy by clicking on the gray triangles next to the folder icons to expand and collapse the folder contents. And if you want to move items between folders, simply select the items you want to move using the checkboxes and click the 'Move to' button in the toolbar. A widget will pop up for choosing a destination folder, or you can select the 'Remove from current folder' option to do just that.

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New features for 2008!

Posted by: Wayne Crosby and Robby Walker, Google Docs Engineers

It's been two months since we launched Google Presentations and already we've got new toys! We've been listening to your feedback and working hard to get you new features as quickly as possible (so keep the suggestions coming). 2008 is going to be a feature packed year for Google Docs, and we are proud to kick it off with these cool new things you can do starting today:



But we didn't stop with these new presentation features - today we are releasing some top user-requested features that we've been working on for several months (yes, even over the holidays):

* Sub-folders, sub-folders, sub-folders...try selecting one of your folders and then choose New > Folder...et voila!
* Rename documents and folders from the Docs home toolbar (the Rename option is now between Delete and More Actions).

We'll do a follow-up post in a few days to talk more about these new features. In the meantime, please check them out & give us your feedback on the user boards.

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