Taking charge of your document sharing

We designed Google Docs to make it easier for users to collaborate with one another — students working on assignments, colleagues designing projects and presentations, and friends and families sharing ideas and planning events together. We think collaboration inspires innovation and learning. That being said, we also recognize that sometimes you may want to share your documents and collaborate with a more limited group. In the spirit of National...

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Google Docs now more consistent

You have given us clear (and sometimes colorful!) feedback that we should improve consistency across our products. In fact, the highest-ranked idea on the recently launched Google Docs product ideas page today asks us for a "uniform interface."Today, we're happy to let you know we've standardized the look and feel of the Google Docs editors. Check this out:The links, title area, menus, menu terminology, and toolbar are now nearly uniform across documents,...

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Data Liberation, "Mark as viewed", and New!

A couple weeks ago, we launched a multi-file uploader to make it much easier for you to put files into the cloud. Today we're launching a new feature to make it much easier to get your content out.That's right, it's our first major offensive on the Data Liberation Front: "Convert, Zip and Download."Select one or more files and then click on "Export" from the "More Actions" menu. Next, pick the format (e.g. PDF, Microsoft Word, etc) you want for your...

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Spotlight: Great public templates in the template gallery

Three months ago, we opened up the template gallery to everyone. Since then, we have seen a lot of great templates that cover many different use cases, from fun and imaginative to purely functional. We want to share some with you.First, let's take a look at one template contributor, Jenny Blake, who has created a number of templates to help you think about your career and your life in general.Template: Life checklist templateGenre: Life planningWe...

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Google Docs previews in Gmail

Starting today, you can preview Google documents, spreadsheets, or presentations right in your Gmail inbox by enabling a new Gmail Labs feature, Google Docs previews.For more information on Google Docs previews in Gmail, check out the post on the Gmail blog.Posted by: Steven Saviano, Software Engin...

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Shared folders and more in Google Docs

Today, we are happy to announce the updates to the Google Docs docs list that we promised in July. We're rolling out these updates gradually, so they should be available to everyone soon. The biggest update is the introduction of shared folders -- far and away the most requested Google Docs feature. Shared folders work how you would expect them to and we hope they will make it easier for teams and groups to collaborate on documents together.To...

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New features for drawings in Google Docs

We'd like to let you know about a few new features we added to drawings in Google Docs. Choose 'Insert Drawing' in any document, spreadsheet, or presentation to check them out. Custom shapes and lines You can now draw lines with multiple segments and create your own...

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Picasa Web Albums integration, site feeds, and page templates in Google Sites

Many people use Google Sites as a way to keep friends and family updated on what's going on in their lives. Great photos add color and personality, which is why we've made it easier to insert your Picasa Web Albums photos into a site. The 'Insert' menu now includes an option to insert a photo.You can also upload a photo directly to Picasa Web Albums from within Google Sites using the 'Upload Photo' tab in the insert dialog.Note that Picasa Web Albums...

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Quickly view formatted PDFs in your search results

Two weeks ago, we launched the Google Docs viewer, which made it easier for webmasters to embed PDFs in their sites and let visitors view these PDFs in their browsers with the formatting intact. Today, the search team has brought the same functionality to PDFs in Google search results. To learn more, check out the post on the Official Google Blog. Posted by: Jesse Kinkead, Software Engin...

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Translation functions in spreadsheets

Earlier this week, we added two functions to Google spreadsheets that add translation and language detection capabilities.=GoogleTranslate("Hola, ¿cómo estás?","es","en") gives "Hi, how are you"=DetectLanguage("Hola, ¿cómo estás?") gives "es"Breaking down the first function, =GoogleTranslate("field one", "field two," field three"), the first field should be the text you want to translate -- in this case "Hola, ¿cómo estás?". The second field should...

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