Google Drive Blog
The latest news and updates from the Google Drive team.
New Search Operators in your Documents List
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Have you ever tried looking for a document or spreadsheet from a particular time or from a certain person about a specific topic? Let’s say you’re a rocket scientist and you’re looking for the presentation about “Prototype rockets with lasers” that your manager sent you last year.
Normally, you’d just search for [rockets lasers prototypes]. But, lets face it, you’re a rocket scientist so you get lots of matching results; just about every document you have is about rockets or lasers.
You could narrow the search in the advanced search menu or you can use
Search Operators
and refine the search directly in the search box:
Quotes for exact phrase matching. Example: [ "match this phrase exactly" ]
OR to allow either one of several words. Example: [ "rockets" OR "shuttles" ]
Items without a certain word: [ rocket -man ] will return docs that mention rocket, but not rocket man.
Items you shared with, or had shared with you: [ from:ted@rocketsnlasers.com ] or [ to:ted@rocketsnlasers.com ]
Starred or Hidden items: [ is:starred ] or [ is:hidden ]
And we recently added a some new search operators:
Type of doc: [ type:{document, spreadsheet, presentation} ]
Items edited before (or after) a certain day: [ before:YYYY-MM-DD, after:YYYY-MM-DD ]
Items owned by Ted: [ owner:ted@rocketsnlasers.com ]
Items with “rocket” in the title: [ title:rocket ]; [ subject:rocket ] does the same thing
Now you, the rocket scientist, should be able to easily find your boss’ presentation by searching for [ rocket laser prototypes from:overhead@rocketsnlasers.com before:2010-01-01 type:presentation ].
Posted by: Vivek Haldar, Software Engineer
Google Docs Viewer on Mobile Browsers
Monday, June 28, 2010
Cross posted on the
Google Mobile Blog
Last week, we
announced
that the
Google Docs viewer
supports .doc and .docx attachments. Today we’re also releasing a mobile version of the Google Docs viewer for Android, iPhone and iPad to help you view PDFs, .ppt, .doc and .docx files you’ve uploaded to your documents list, without needing to download the file.
With our mobile viewer you can switch quickly between pages and pan/zoom within a page. On your iPhone and iPad, you can pinch to zoom in or out.
You can try it out by going to
docs.google.com
on your Android-powered device, iPad or iPhone and select any document in these formats that you've previously uploaded. Let us know what you think in the
Mobile Help Forum
.
Posted by:
Mickey Kataria, Software Engineer
View .doc attachments right in your browser
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Cross posted on the
Gmail blog
If you receive Microsoft® Word files as attachments in Gmail, you can now view them with a single click -- no need to download, save, and open files with a desktop application when all you want to do is have a peek. The
Google Docs viewer
that allows you to view
.pdf
,
.ppt, and .tiff
files in your browser now supports .doc and .docx formats too. Just click the "View" link at the bottom of a Gmail message and the viewer will take it from there.
If you decide you want to edit the file, clicking "Edit online" will open it in Google Docs, or you can download it to your desktop from there.
Posted by: Marc Miller, Software Engineer
Tips & Tricks: Advanced Sorting Rules in Google spreadsheets
Thursday, June 24, 2010
In April, we
launched
a new version of Google spreadsheets. One new feature that helps organize your data is advanced sorting rules.
Sorting a selection
With the new sorting capabilities, you can sort a small selection of cells without affecting the rest of your spreadsheet. In my triathlon spreadsheet, for example, I could sort only the selection about running while leaving the biking and swimming sections intact. First, I highlight the range of cells in my spreadsheet about running.
Then, I go to the
Tools
menu and select
Sort
. Now I can set a sorting rule. In this case, I'd like to sort my running races by date.
Last, I click the
Sort
button, and my running times are organized by date.
Setting multiple sorting rules
The new sorting feature also allows you to set more than one sorting rule for any given selection of cells. If you select just the data about running again, you can sort first by distance and then by time to more easily see your average time. Click
+Add another
to add additional sorting rules.
Sorting the entire sheet
Alternatively, you can sort the entire sheet. Click the square in the top left corner of your spreadsheet to select all cells in your spreadsheet. Once you’ve selected all of the cells in your sheet, you can set your sorting rules in the same way as sorting a selection.
A detailed look at sorting
The title of your sorting pop-up will tell you what range of cells you have highlighted to be sorted. If it's wrong, click
Cancel
and try again. If your columns have titles, you'll want to check the
Data has header row
box. Next, you'll be able to choose what columns you'd like to sort by in the drop down menu next to sort by. If you'd like to add multiple rules, click
+Add another
until you're done setting your sorting rules. When you're done, click the Sort button, and voila!
Advanced sorting rules and other new features aren't available if you've switched back to the old version of Google spreadsheets. If you have switched, you can easily return to the new version by clicking 'New version' in the top right corner of your browser.
Posted by: Michael Schidlowsky, Software Engineer
Make money with Google Sites and Google AdSense
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
If you have a
public
site built on Google Sites, you might be interested in earning revenue with Google AdSense. AdSense allows website publishers such as yourself to show targeted ads on their sites and earn revenue from their traffic. It also helps visitors find things they may be interested in based on the content of those sites. Over 1 million publishers use AdSense to monetize the content on the sites they’ve worked so hard to build.
AdSense shows ads relevant to the content of the site and you can easily customize the look and feel of the ads to match your site. For example, if your site is about fashion, you may show ads for shoe designers or clothing stores. If a page on your site is about cars, you may see ads for car dealerships or auto shops on that page. Using filters, you can control the content of the ads you display by choosing to block categories of ads or even specific advertisers.
With the free suite of powerful AdSense reporting tools, you can pull detailed reports that will help you track your revenue and identify opportunities to earn more money. You can see earnings by day, page, domain or specific ad unit and can also use
Google Analytics
to see the source of your traffic and earnings.
Adding AdSense to your Google Site is easy. Just follow these steps:
Click the
More actions
drop-down menu at the top right of your site, and select
Manage site
.
Click
Monetize
on the left side of the page.
Click the
Monetize this site
button.
Create a new AdSense account or use an existing account. Follow the instructions, depending on the radio button you select.
Once you've enabled AdSense, go to any of your site's pages in the edit mode, click
Insert
, and select
AdSense
to insert ads within your page. You can also choose to have ads displayed in your global sidebar.
To learn even more about Google AdSense, come take our
tour
.
Posted by: Courtney Yamada, AdSense Team
Optical character recognition (OCR) in Google Docs
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
A couple of months ago, my co-worker, Mike, showed up at my desk with a pile of paper, each of the yellowed sheets densely covered with an ancient-looking typewriter font. His wife had recently discovered parts of her family chronicles in the attic, typed up by her grandmother many years ago! Now he was wondering if there was a way for her to continue writing the chronicles in Google Docs.
The papers sat on my desk for a while, but recently, I returned them to Mike with a smile, cheerfully telling him that what started as my
20% project
is now ready for everyone to use -- Google Docs now officially supports importing scanned documents. What we launched as an
experimental feature for the Documents List Data API
last year is now available on the upload page: check the “Convert text from PDF or image files to Google Docs documents”, upload your scanned images (JPEG, GIF, PNG) or PDFs, and Google Docs will extract text and formatting from the scans for you to edit away.
For the technically curious: we’re using
Optical Character Recognition
(OCR) that our friends from
Google Books
helped us set up. OCR works best with high-resolution images, and not all formatting may be preserved. The original images will be included in the new document to make it easier for you to correct mistakes. Supported languages include English, French, Italian, German and Spanish, with more languages and character sets on their way. We’re looking forward to get feedback from you while we keep improving the feature over the next months.
And Mike’s scanned family chronicles have even been extended by an additional chapter in Google Docs: his wife recently had a baby boy named James!
Posted by: Jaron Schaeffer, Software Engineer, Google Docs
Chrome extensions for Google Docs
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Six months ago, we
launched
the Chrome extension,
Google Docs PDF/Powerpoint Viewer
, that allows you to preview PDFs and Powerpoint presentations in your Google Chrome browser without having to download them.
With more than 400,000 users, the
Google Docs PDF/Powerpoint Viewer
extension has become one of the most popular extensions in the Chrome Extensions gallery. Since the launch, we have continued adding features such as support for previewing Microsoft Word documents and made the extension available in all 48 languages that Google Docs supports.
As we continue to add more features to our extension, we are also excited to see developers create extensions that add more functionality for Google Docs.
For example, you can use
Snippy
to grab and save snippets of web pages and upload them to Google Docs. Another great extension is
Table Capture
that lets you easily copy and paste HTML tables into Google spreadsheets.
There are also extensions that help you get to Google Docs faster. The
New Spreadsheet
and
New Doc
extensions add a button next to the address bar for quick spreadsheet and document creation.
You can find more extensions in the gallery. There are more than 5,000 extensions waiting to be discovered by you.
Posted by: Koh Kim, Associate Product Marketing Manager
Sharing in Google Docs just got easier
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The ability to share my Google Docs is crucial to my productivity. My teammates and I often add comments to docs, collaboratively organize our feature-planning spreadsheet, and send links of interesting company presentations to each other. Like anyone, I want to make sure that I can share these materials with my colleagues easily and efficiently. This is why I’m happy to announce some improvements that make sharing your Docs easier while giving you even more control:
Improved visibility options indicating how private or shareable a doc is
: Google docs can now be identified as: private; anyone with a link; or public on the web.
Private
: Docs start out as private. When you first create a doc, you are the only person with access to it. From there, you can give access to other people.
Anyone with the link
: If you set your doc to “Anyone with the link,” it’s like an unlisted phone number. In the same way that anyone who knows an unlisted phone number can call it, anyone who knows the web address or URL of that doc can view it.
Public on the web
allows anyone the ability to find and access that particular doc on the web. For example, you could create a flyer for a concert, save it as a public doc, post a link to it on your blog. Public docs are automatically indexed by search engines like Google, so they may appear in search results as well.
Access viewable at a glance
: Visibility options for your docs now appear next to every doc title and in the docs list. You can easily see the full list of editors and viewers by clicking on the visibility option next to the doc’s title or on the
Share
button
A cleaner, simpler interface
: We’ve removed the three tab interface and replaced it with one dialog that lets you see who has access, manage access and invite others.
Resettable doc URL
: For a doc set to anyone with a link, you can reset the doc’s URL at anytime, which helps you better control who has access to your doc.
Bulk changes in the docs list
: You can now modify the sharing settings of multiple docs at a time by selecting multiple docs and selecting
Share > Sharing settings
.
To learn more about how these new visibility options work and for an overview of sharing in Google Docs, check out the videos below:
These changes are rolling out now and should be available to everyone in the next week. These improvements have really made a difference in my Google Docs experience. I can share much more quickly and always tell at a glance who has access to my docs. I hope you find them helpful too. Let us know what you think
in the forums
.
Posted by: Vikki Chou, Software Engineer
Tips & Tricks: Table of Contents in Google documents
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Like in a book, the table of contents in a document is an important element that keeps readers and authors organized. It allows you to create a list of links at the beginning of your document that point to different sections of that document. This can be useful for drafting term papers, design documents or restaurant menus. Once you’ve created your table of contents, you can easily update its links as you edit each section of your document.
To make a table of contents, you need to mark each section of your document with a heading. To do this, highlight the appropriate text, and then select a heading size from the style menu in the toolbar.
To revert a heading to normal text, simply select the
Normal
option from the same drop down menu; doing so will also remove that link in the table of contents after you update the table of contents.
After you’ve marked each section with a heading, your document could look like this:
You can then add a table of contents from the
Insert
menu.
After you’ve added a table of contents, it will automatically create a link to each heading in your document.
As you update your document, you can easily update the table of contents by clicking the
Update now
button in the top right of the table of contents.
Posted by: John Day Richter, Software Engineer
New features for drawings
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
We'd like to let you know about a few new features we’ve recently added to drawings. Go create a drawing to check them out.
Center on page
While it’s possible to use alignment guides to center an object or group of objects on the page, now you can center an object on the page quickly using the context menu or
Format
menu.
Aspect-constrained canvas re-size
You’ll often want to just shrink or expand your working canvas size without changing the aspect ratio, which is 4 x 3 by default. So, now you can hold shift while you re-size the canvas to preserve its current aspect ratio.
Thumbnails for drawings in the doc list
When you search for drawings it’s really helpful to
see
the results. Now you can use the thumbnail view in your doc list to quickly preview all of the drawings in the results of your search.
Full text search for drawings
Some drawings may also contain text that you may want to search for. Now we let you search through all of the text in your drawings - within a text box, shape, or word art - so that when you search for that text from your private docs list, your drawing will show up in the results.
Pop-up keyboard shortcut help
We know there are a lot of tricky little keyboard modifiers you need to know about to use some of the most powerful features of drawings. Now these shortcuts be easily inspected at a glance by hitting
Control
/ or
Command
/ on a Mac which has the distinction of being the last keyboard shortcut you ever need to memorize. Kudos to the Gmail team for inspiring this design.
Let us know what you think
in the forums
.
Posted by: Chris Nokleberg, Software Engineer
Tips & Tricks: Enhancing your presentations with Google drawings
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
In April the we
launched
the new Google drawings editor. I use Google drawings to enhance my Google presentations by building dynamic and informative images in drawings and copying them over to the presentation I’m making. Read on for some tips on how to use drawings to make a better presentation.
Expressing ideas using diagrams from the template gallery
Google recently launched the template gallery for drawings. When I need to express an idea with a diagram, this is a great first place to look. Diagrams can express
relationships
,
organizations
,
processes
, and other ideas that are difficult to show in words.
For more information on adding, searching for, and rating templates, check out our
blog post
on the template gallery.
Giving your text boxes some style
Sometimes when I need to get a point across, I find it’s easier to do when I surround it with color. With Google drawings, I encapsulate my thoughts in any number of shapes. Drawings lets me add text to pretty much any shape by double clicking on the shape.
After I type text into the box, I use the formatting palette to make the point stand out.
Enhancing images to highlight a point
Every so often I need to include a chart, screenshot, or image and highlight a specific point that I want to discuss. Using drawings, I add pointers and boxes to overlay a chart, screenshot, or image in order to draw the viewers eye to what I’d like to call out.
To do this I use the
Insert > Image
option and load whatever image I want to work with onto my canvas.
Then I use either the arrow line or a shape to highlight my point. To overlay shapes, I set the background color to transparent so that the image below is still visible.
Copying my drawing into a presentation
Once I’ve finished using drawings to create my visuals, I copy it onto a slide in my presentation. To do this, I go to the
Web Clipboard
in my drawing and select
Copy entire drawing to web clipboard
.
Once the drawing is in my web clipboard, I go to my presentation and select the slide that I want to drop my drawing into. Then, I click on the
Web Clipboard
icon and select the drawing from the list.
Once it’s on the slide I can re-size it to the best fit. I can even make edits to the drawing from within the presentation, by double clicking on the drawing and opening the embedded drawing editor.
Posted by: Bryan Carroll, Consumer Operations Strategist
The new Google Docs graduates
Monday, June 14, 2010
June is the month of graduations and new beginnings for millions of students around the world. The Google Docs team is also continually learning and we’re happy to announce that the new
documents
and
spreadsheets
editors have both graduated.
Documents
Beginning today and rolling out over the next couple of weeks, all new documents will be created using the
new documents editor
. Docs already created using the older editor will remain there. We will be sharing more information on how to move those documents to the new version soon.
The new editor was built for faster real-time collaboration, better imports, and more control over your document’s layout. Since the preview, we’ve added lots of features including a table of contents, a special characters dialog, a dictionary, search as-you-type, and re-sizable images. You can learn more about the new document editor
here
.
Spreadsheets
The new version of spreadsheets is available as the default to everyone starting today. Since the
launch of the new spreadsheets
, we’ve added a lot of new features, including formula highlighting, sheet dragging, sheet menu, faster scrolling, an editable formula bar, and autocomplete in cells, copy sheet from one spreadsheet to another and range sorting.
GoogleLookup
and
spreadsheet gadgets
, which will be added to the new editor shortly, can still be used in the old version which can be accessed by clicking on the “Old version” link in the top right of any spreadsheet. The old version will be available for a few more weeks..
Thanks to everyone who has tried out the new editors over the last couple of months. Your feedback has been very valuable as we prepared to make it available to everyone. The new editors also let us develop new features more quickly, so let us know what you think on the forums.
Finally, there’s also good news for Google Apps customers: these new editors will become their default soon as well. We’ll begin activating the new editor for documents on June 21 and for spreadsheets on June 30. Watch the
Google Enterprise Blog
for more information.
Update
: Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback on the new editors. While the new editors are the default for both documents and spreadsheets, based on your feedback we have modified the roll out of the new documents editor to give you the option to opt-out and stay on the older version. You can do this by unchecking the “Create new text documents using the latest version of the document editor” box on the
Editing
tab in
Google Docs settings
. We will update you again when we have gathered additional feedback and have new timing regarding the deprecation of the old editor.
Posted by: Jeff Harris, Product Manager
Share your drawings with the Google Docs template gallery
Friday, June 11, 2010
Since the launch of Google Docs drawings, we’ve been excited to see you not only create really impressive and useful drawings, but also actively share them with the world. In order to make it easier for you to share your drawings, we’ve added drawings to the Google Docs template gallery. Sharing via the gallery gives you categories, ratings, and even usage counts for drawings you’ve submitted.
Here are a couple examples of drawing templates currently in the gallery:
Some other examples already available include a
coin puzzle
, a
series of United States maps
, a
business model example
,
isometrics
, a
floor plan
, and an
interactive learning object
.
Go
check out
the drawings in the gallery, and please
submit your best drawings
to the public, so that everyone can easily take advantage of your hard work. And,
let us know
if you’ve made something that will blow our minds, and you’d like us to feature your drawing here on the Google Docs blog.
Posted by: Bob Rose, Software Engineer
Invite someone to try Google Docs - without signing up
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
If you’ve been holding off on trying our
new editors
or know a friend who has never tried Google Docs because they don’t have a Google Account, you can now take Google Docs for a test drive with the new
Google Docs demo
. This lightweight demo includes a sample document, spreadsheet and drawing and works even if you aren’t logged into a Google Account.
Instead of trying to explain to friends how real-time collaboration in Google Docs works, now you can show them. All you have to do is go to
docs.google.com/demo
, share the link over chat or email, and start typing. Real-time character by character co-editing in documents, cell presence in spreadsheets and instant updates in drawings are all seconds away.
Take it for a spin
and let us know what you think in the comments.
Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager
Tips & Tricks: Embedding Google Docs in Google Sites
Monday, June 7, 2010
Embedding a Google document, spreadsheet, presentation, or form in a Google site can help you easily publish and share information in one central location. Embedding is different from simply copying and pasting information into a site because if you make a change to any of your embedded documents while using Google Docs, the changes will be reflected on your site.
Embedding a form
Let’s say I’m planning a wedding and I’d like to create a Google site as a centralized place for my guests to RSVP and gather all of the information they need. First, I need to create my site. I visit
sites.google.com
and click
Create site
.
After choosing one of the many wedding site templates, I’m ready to begin personalizing it. I’d like to include the RSVP form on my wedding site because even though I sent paper invitations, embedding a form in my site makes collecting RSVPs easier and more streamlined. When guests visit the site to RSVP, they can also find out more about the bride and groom, the registry, and event details, among other things.
To collect RSVPs, I’ll want to create a form in Google Docs. Once I do this, I go back to my site and create a new page on my wedding site where I want to embed the RSVP form.
I can add a title or any additional text to the page I’ve just created. Next, I go to the
Insert
menu and select
Spreadsheet form
. I’d like to select the RSVP form I’ve just created to embed on this page of my site.
My guests can now visit my site to RSVP to the wedding and simultaneously get all of the information they need about the ceremony and reception.
Embedding other types of Google Docs
You can embed any Google document, spreadsheet or presentation in a Google site using the Insert menu. On my wedding site, for example, I can embed a Google document outlining travel and accommodation for wedding guests or a fun slide presentation about how the bride and groom met. Embedding Google Docs in a Google site helps you easily deliver information to your friends, family, colleagues or students in a centralized and organized way.
Posted by: Julia Harter, Consumer Operations Associate
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