Edit charts in Google spreadsheets with just a click

Charts tell the story of our data, so we often spend a lot of time getting the formatting just right. That’s why we wanted to make that process quicker and easier in Google spreadsheets. Instead of opening the chart editor dialog to make formatting changes, you can now click directly on the part of the chart you want to modify to change things like the colors, legend, and labels.

You can now also resize and move the chart around to make room for other components like axis labels and the legend. To do this, click the background of the chart and choose the Move and Resize option. You’ll then be able to drag the edges of the chart and move it around to allow things like the legend labels to all fit on one line, like in the example below.

(Before/After)

Once you’re done editing, you can switch to view mode by clicking the button in the top left corner of the chart, where you can click to see the value of data points and use other helpful interactive features. 

We hope to add more charting features to this new quick edit experience over the coming months, so stay tuned.

Posted by: Hillel Maoz, Software Engineer

Read More

Google Drive is the new home for all your Google Docs and more. Get started.

Several months ago, we launched Google Drive: one place to create, collaborate, share and keep all your stuff. If you’ve used Docs in the past, Google Drive is the new home for all your files and folders including your Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

This means all your files that were previously stored in Google Docs will now be available in Google Drive. If you haven’t already started using Google Drive, you’ll see a message to try it out the next time you visit docs.google.com.

With Google Drive, you’ll get access to new features. 

• Access everywhere, every device. Drive comes with desktop and mobile apps, making it much easier to upload, sync and access your stuff from any device. Get Drive for Android and iOS and you can create and edit documents, open and share files, and upload photos and videos. 
• Find your stuff faster. Look for files by keyword and Drive searches everything — even text within scanned documents or images without any text at all. Drive also comes with a simplified navigation to help you better organize your files, and there's a new grid view to help you see thumbnails at a glance. 
• Work with more apps in Drive. Google Drive is integrated with a growing number of third-party apps, so you can do things like send faxes, edit videos and create website mockups all in one place. 

Just in case you’re not quite ready for change, you can click the “Temporarily use the old look” button on the pop-up message, but eventually all Docs users will be switched to Drive.

You may also have noticed a few other changes in the Docs world. First, you’re reading this post on the brand new googledrive.blogspot.com. But don’t worry--if you were subscribed to googledocs.blogspot.com, you’ll still automatically get all of our updates in your feed.

Our social sites have also made the switch to Drive, so if you aren’t already, follow us on plus.google.com/+GoogleDrive and twitter.com/googledrive to stay up on the latest news and updates from our team.

Visit the help center to learn more.

Posted by Scott Johnston, Group Product Manager

Read More

Google Drive: Updates for iOS and Android

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Every day, more and more people are choosing to live online and get things done in the cloud. Helping to make this experience as seamless as possible, Google Drive is one place where you can create, share and keep all your stuff. Drive is available on the web, as well as Mac, Windows and Android and iOS.

Updates for iOS
Starting today, if you’re using the Drive app on your iOS device you can also edit Google documents, just as you can with the Android app. From your iPhone or iPad, you can create a new document, edit an existing one or format text. And just like on your computer, you’ll be able to see other people’s edits instantly as they’re made.

You’ll also notice other new improvements to the iOS Drive app. For example, you can now view Google presentations on your iPhone or iPad, including speaker notes, full-screen mode and the ability to swipe between slides. You can also create new folders, move files into folders and upload stuff (like photos and videos) from your device directly in the Drive app.

Updates for Android 
We’re also updating the Drive app for Android phones and tablets today. You can now add comments, reply to existing comments and view tables in your Google documents. And you’ll have the same new abilities to view presentations and organize your stuff as your friends with iPhones do.

More to come... 
Looking ahead, we have plenty more planned for the Drive mobile apps—including native editing and real-time collaboration for Google spreadsheets. Stay tuned.

Get Drive in the App Store for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and visit the Play Store to get the latest on your Android phone or tablet. To learn more about Google Drive, visit drive.google.com/start. 
Posted by Anil Sabharwal, Senior Product Manager

Read More

Google spreadsheets, now with discussions

Getting things done with others would be much easier if everyone was sitting right next to you. But since that’s rarely the case, we’re always updating Google Drive to make it easier to collaborate with others, no matter where you are or who you’re with.

Today we’re bringing the discussion functionality that’s already in documents and presentations to spreadsheets. If a cell has a comment in it, you'll see an orange triangle in the upper right corner and when you hover over the cell you'll see the full discussion.

The total number of comments are also tallied up at the bottom of the screen on the sheet tab, and hovering over the comment icon shows all the comments on that sheet.

And just like you’re used to with comments elsewhere, you can +mention someone to automatically include them in a discussion and send them a notification via email—and they can even reply to the comment without leaving their inbox.

Any comments that were created in spreadsheets before today are still available and saved as “Notes”. These are shown in your spreadsheet using a black triangle in the corner of the cell to differentiate them from the new discussion-style comments. You can also create new notes from the “Insert” menu if you need to leave a quick annotation on a cell.

We hope discussions makes working in spreadsheets with others more fun and productive, and we look forward to making even more improvements to collaboration in Google Drive.

Posted by Patrick Donelan, Software Engineer

Read More