Some new ways to get stuff done in Google Drive

In case you haven’t noticed them already, here are a handful of small updates that will make it easier to find, organize, and view stuff on Drive.

• Search by person: Can't remember the name of a file but know who shared it with you? Now Drive search auto-completes people’s names making it easier to find the stuff you’re looking for.

• View Google Earth map files: You can now open, preview, and interact with Google Earth files (.kml and .kmz) right inside Google Drive on the web.

• Create new folders while organizing files: Now when you select files in your Drive list, in addition to adding them to an existing folder, you can add them directly to a new folder.

• Drag and drop folders in Chrome: If you’re using Chrome, you can drag and drop entire folders from your desktop to Drive on the web.

• Search includes your trash: Sometimes files you are looking for accidentally ended up in your trash, so now search results include files there too.

Posted by Josh Hudgins, Product Manager

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Co-write a song, tell a shared story with the Gone Google Story Builder

We love hearing about all the different ways people use collaboration in Docs - from creating shared grocery lists to co-authoring full length novels. In the past, we even created a few of our own stories showing how you can go Google, whether you’re writing an 80s hit or crafting the perfect invite list.

Now, anyone can create their own story about collaboration with the Gone Google Story Builder. Make your own personalized video featuring the characters, story, and even music of your choosing and then share it with everyone you know (or maybe just a few of your closest friends).

Get started at google.com/gonegoogle/story.

If you feel up to it, post your best creation to Google+ with the tag #gonegoogle - we’ll feature a few favorites next week on our Google+ page. 

Posted by Preston Hershorn, Product Marketing Manager

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Share your stuff from Google Drive to Google+

With Google+, you can share what you want with just the right people. That might be pictures from your weekend apple picking adventure or an article from your favorite new blog. Starting today, you can also share the stuff you create and store in Google Drive, and people will be able to flip through presentations, open PDFs, play videos and more, directly in the Google+ stream.

(click the image above to view a presentation in the stream) 

To get started, simply click the Google+ icon when you're sharing from Drive, or copy-and-paste a link to a file from Google Drive into one of your Google+ posts.

Posted by Li-Wei Lee, Software Engineer

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Research pane updates: quick access to your stuff in Docs, Slides & Drawings

A few months ago, the research pane was added to Docs to make it easier for you to search for and add web results, images, quotations, maps, and articles to your document. Starting today, the research pane is also available in Slides and Drawings, and searches now include your stuff in addition to web results.

With the research pane, you can now quickly find and use your stuff: include part of a presentation stored in Drive, insert an image from your Picasa albums, or grab a quote from a friend’s Google+ post. (Google Apps customers will only see web results in their research panes.)

(Previewing and inserting a spreadsheet from Google Drive) 

 Posted by: Vivek Agarwal, Software Engineer

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One click to Docs, Sheets, and Slides

Google Drive is a place where you can create, share, collaborate and keep all your stuff. Of course, there are times you want to start a new document right away–say, to take notes in class or prepare a last-minute presentation for your boss.

To make it even easier for you to create stuff quickly, Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations–now called Docs, Sheets, and Slides–are available as apps in the Chrome Web Store. Once installed, shortcuts to these apps will appear when you open a new tab in Chrome.

If you use a Chromebook, you’ll see Docs, Sheets, and Slides in your apps list by default following the next update to Chrome OS in a few weeks.

Posted by Jonathan Rochelle, Director of Product Management

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Less is more

Ever wanted more room to get stuff done in Google documents? Click the new button in the upper right corner of your screen to enter Compact Mode, and everything above the formatting menu will collapse and give you another inch or so to work with.

You can also now quickly take menu actions by typing in the new search box. For example, if you type in “Picture,” you’ll see different options for adding graphics to your document.

Posted by Arnav Shah, Software Engineer

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Table improvements and easier formatting in documents

Starting today, it’s easier to work with tables and to make formatting changes in Google documents.

You can now select any grid of cells in a table, which makes it much easier to make table formatting changes, like bolding just a single column.

Copy-and-paste of table cells is also improved. For example, you can copy a single word into many cells simply by highlighting those cells before you paste.

Or if you copy multiple cells from one table to another, the copied text will be pasted without creating a table in a table.

Finally, if you want to make changes to a series of similarly formatted text (like changing every blue and underlined link) throughout your document at once, right click on text with the formatting you want to change, choose “Select all matching text,” and apply new formatting in bulk, instead of individually updating each occurrence.

Posted by Isabella Ip, Software Engineer

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