Google Drive Blog: April 2009

Spruce up your surveys: 70 colorful themes

Thursday, April 30, 2009

We've just launched 70 themes for forms so you can add a little (or a lot of) color to your surveys and questionnaires. Some themes are basic colors schemes (like Blue, Espresso, or Rose) and others are fancier designs (like Picnic, Zen Spring, and Dusk).

How do you choose a theme? When you're editing a form, click the Theme button to find the right theme and apply it to your form. One caveat: These themes will be visible to your respondents when they fill out the form online, not within email (like Gmail).
Try them out and let us know what you think.

Posted by: Andrew Chang, Marketing Manager
Update: Replaced an extra open paren with a comma and corrected the image. Oops.

Sheet protection gives you finer control of your spreadsheets

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

When working on a spreadsheet together with others, sometimes it's handy to allow some people to modify specific sheets but restrict them from modifying other sheets.
Today we've added sheet protection - an additional layer of control over who can edit individual sheets, using the list of people invited as collaborators. Just go to the sheet, bring up the menu, and choose Protect sheet.

Say I'm throwing a party (a wild one, of course) and I've invited my friends Frank, Ian, Kev and Veronica to a spreadsheet to help with planning. I know for sure Ian and Kev have good taste in music so I'll let them select some choice tunes... but Frank should probably just stick to bringing chips and salsa. Here's how I set up protection for the sheet titled Music playlist:

Easy as that. Ian and Kev will be able to modify the sheet all they like, while Frank and Veronica will see the sheet but won't be able to make changes. (Later, if Veronica promises to leave her enormous ABBA collection at home, maybe I'll let her edit it too.)

Sheet protection is a great way to add a little fine control over the contents of your spreadsheets. We hope you find it as useful as we have.

Posted by: Joseph Wain, User Experience Designer

View PowerPoint attachments in Gmail and upload them to Google Docs

Thursday, April 23, 2009

View as slideshow ViewEdit Onlinecheck out the Gmail blogPosted by: Stephen Drennan, Google Docs Consumer Operations

For Beginners: 3 Getting Started Guides

Thursday, April 23, 2009

ChrystinaGetting Started Guidesspreadsheetsdocumentspresentationsread this guideHelp CenterHelp ForumPosted by: Estela Arbuco, Docs Online Editor