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 is not available in Google Apps, so this option will not appear for Google Apps users.

We've also made it easier for your friends and family to follow updates on your site. You can now access any announcement page as a feed by adding posts.xml to the end of that announcement page URL. For example, this is the feed URL for our sample ski club site:

• http://sites.google.com/a/googleuniversity.org/ski-club/Home/Ski-Club-Announcements/posts.xml

Feeds are also available for site comments (add "comments.xml") and site activity (add "activity.xml"). Announcement and comment feeds follow the permission of the site and require authentication for private sites. This means online feed readers which don't support authenticated feeds won't be able to subscribe to private site feeds or site activity.

Lastly, we also added the ability to create custom page templates for a site. Creating a page template lets you define default content as well as settings, like layout, that other collaborators can use when they create a new page. For example, if you are working on an intranet site, you can create a department page template and use that template for each department page. This saves time and adds consistency to your site.

Posted by: Scott Johnston, Senior Product Manager, Google Sites

Read More

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 Engineer

Read More

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 be the two letter language code of the text you want to translate -- "es" is the two letter code for Spanish. Lastly, the final field indicates which language you want want the text to be translated into -- "en" is the two letter code for English. If you leave out the last field, the function will automatically translate the text into the language of the spreadsheet. The second function, =DetectLanguage("field one") works similarly and outputs the two letter language code of the text.

These functions open up some fun and interesting ways to use forms. For example, you could collect comments in many languages and use the two functions together to automatically translate responses into your native language.

If you hover over a cell with translated text, the original text is displayed.

If you want to try it out for yourself, check out this template. We're excited about the possibilities this opens up and we hope you enjoy translating your spreadsheets.

Posted by: Frank Tang, Software Engineer

Read More

Call to participate in the National Day on Writing

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has established October 20, 2009 as the National Day on Writing. For the National Day on Writing, the NCTE is collecting thousands of writing samples to be unveiled on that day and showcased online. The Google Docs team has partnered with the NCTE to curate a gallery and we're looking for contributions from you that speak to our theme: "The Internet and its impact on our lives."

Interesting in contributing? Go to the National Gallery on Writing and submit your writing piece as a published Google document.

Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager

Read More

Add page break and go to page in forms

Have you ever wanted to create a form that changes which questions to show next based on an answer received earlier in the form? The two features we launched today make that easy. First, we've added one of the most requested features for forms: page breaks. Now it is easy to create a form with multiple pages by going to "Add item" and selecting "Page break."

We've also added another highly requested feature, logic branching. Once you've created a form with multiple pages, you can select "Go to page based on answer" to control the flow of your form based on the user's answers. For example, you can create a form asking the person to select their language and then direct them to a form in the correct language.

If you want to see both of these new features in action, let us know what your favorite holiday is.

Page breaks and go to page open up a whole new realm of possibilities. For example, you can create a product survey that asks a different set of questions based on whether someone has used the product before or a conference feedback form that branches off based on the session someone attended. You can even create your own interactive murder mystery or adventure using a Google form, share it with your friends and publish it in the public templates gallery. We hope you enjoy these new additions to forms!

Posted by: Dan Ferrara & Jackie Tsay, Bold Practicum Interns

Read More

View online files using the Google Docs Viewer

Last year, we added PDF upload and view to Google Docs, and the "View" link for PDF attachments in Gmail. We also added support for viewing PowerPoint and TIFF files in Gmail this April. Feedback on these features has been very positive - viewing files right in your browser is fast, and it keeps your downloads folder clean. Plus, it spares you the hassle of saving your files to the machine you're using, which could be a shared or public computer.

Starting today, we're opening up this technology to all webmasters and blog owners with the Google Docs viewer. All you have to do is give the URL of a PDF, Powerpoint or TIFF document to us and we'll display it directly in your browser with no download required - like this. For complete documentation, and a form to generate code for embedded viewers (example below), check out our webpage.



Are you a Box.net user? You'll be happy to know you can use this service to view documents stored within your Box - just add the Google Docs Viewer OpenBox Service to your account.

Enjoy!

Posted by: Jesse Kinkead, Software Engineer

Read More

Day in the Life of a Docs Student

(Cross-posted on the Google students blog)

The Google Docs team is getting ready for back to school. We've been doing our homework this summer to make your school year go a little smoother. Today we're launching a handful of features that will benefit both students and teachers. Speaking from experience, as students ourselves, we know that these features will come in handy on any given day. Check out the schedule below to see how.

Time	Schedule
9:00am	Spanish Literature [Bldg200-253]
	Writing essays about Gabriel García Márquez is hard enough in English; try it in Spanish. At least now I can make sure I'm on the right track by defining and translating Spanish words. Like any research essay, I have to double space the document and cite my sources. I use footnotes to cite sources. They are automatically numbered so I don't have to keep track of them and they sit in the margins for easy reference. As of today, I can even print footnotes as endnotes, consolidated on separate pages at the end of my document.
10:00am	Gym break
	I keep track of my daily workout progress using a variety of Docs templates. Today I'll be using the Runner's Log:
11:00am	Hiking Club [Student Union]
	The other club officers and I make sure that we cover all important topics by collaborating on an agenda outline before each weekly meeting. As the secretary, I also take notes on the outline so I like being able to customize how the list is formatted. The officers also work together to make sure our website is up to date. With Google Sites we can each edit the site when necessary without learning html. My favorite feature is the ability to embed maps, documents, and calendars directly into a page.
12:00pm	Lunch
	I keep up to date on the go by viewing and editing my docs on a mobile phone.
1:00pm	Probabilistic Systems Analysis Lecture [Bldg32-123]
	This class moves pretty fast. My friends and I sit near each other and take notes on a single Google Doc to make sure we don't miss a thing. With the new equation editor feature, it's much easier to read and understand each others' equation notations. And whenever I walk into class a little late, I can just do a revision comparison of our shared notes document to see exactly what I've missed.
2:00pm	Solid State Chemistry Tutorial [Bldg5-320]
	In order to lead this tutorial, I often put together some slides beforehand and share them with my students. Now that Google Docs Presentations supports subscripts and superscripts, it's even easier to make and edit these slides.

Want to try out these features in your routine? Find some more detailed information about the features here.

Posted by: Rita Chen and Stephanie Vezich, Google Docs Summer Interns

Read More