Google Drive Blog

Counting Down to NFL Season? Let Google Docs Count for You.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Guest post: Beah Burger, a member of the Search Quality team here at Google, has an affinity for using lesser-known Google spreadsheet functions to solve everyday problems. A couple of months ago, Beah wrote in her personal blog about how her favorite Google spreadsheet function, GoogleLookup, helped her create a list of song recommendations for her friends' wedding. We asked Beah to write a guest post about another off-the-beaten-path use of Google spreadsheets.

Now I want to create a cell with the second argument for the DAYS360 function: the game date. I'll type "Sep 13" into cell B4. Google spreadsheets understand that I am typing a date and automatically convert the text to this format: "9/13/2009."

So far, so good. Now that we have our two arguments, we are ready to use the DAYS360 function. The syntax for DAYS360 is "=DAYS360(date_1, date_2, type)". Because date_1 is located in cell A2 and date_2 is located in cell B4, the function should look like this: "=DAYS360(A2, B4)". (The "type" argument is optional and not necessary here so I'll omit it). I could also have skipped typing "Aug 13" into its own cell and written the function like this: "=DAYS360(A2, "8/13/2009")".

Google spreadsheets function listPosted by: Beah Burger, Search Quality Strategist

Use Google Docs & Google Checkout to Sell Online

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Google Checkout store gadgetSpreadsheet Data APIsGoogle CheckoutCreate your online store using the Google Checkout store gadget today. Sign up

template spreadsheetstep-by-step guide

Google Checkout store gadgetstep-by-step guide

Learn morereview our troubleshooting guidePosted by: Mike Giardina, Strategist, Google Checkout

Making presentations better with tables and auto-play

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

hereKeep it upPosted by: Dave Santoro and Attila Bodis, Software Engineers

Public Template Gallery submissions now open to everyone

Friday, July 17, 2009

we launched the public template gallery last yeargallery page

embed your templateGoogle Docs Template GallerySubmit a templateSubmit templateblog posthttp://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+DocsPosted by: Valerie Blechar, Software Engineer

Pardon our Dust

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Exact phase matching, by using quotes: ["match this phrase exactly"]
Or: ["tacos" OR "nachos"]
Negation: [salsa -dancing]. This will include items with salsa recipes, but not items about dancing
Who the doc is shared from or to: [from:bob@gmail.com] or [to:bob@gmail.com]
Star or Hidden state: [is:starred] or [is:hidden]

Posted by: Vijay Bangaru, Product Manager, Google Docs

Using Google Docs to organize a karoake road trip

Monday, July 13, 2009

Tara Hunt, author of the The Whuffie FactorWhuffaoke or BustWhuffaoke or Bust has been quite the undertaking to organize. The crew members reside in 4 different locations, with one of them in the UK. We have local ambassadors in the 14 city stops. We have 8 sponsors who are quite involved at some level. And everyone and everything is geographically spread out. Pretty much everything requires online collaboration tools.

We have been using Google Docs extensively to organize Whuffaoke or Bust. Almost all of the pieces of this complicated production require input from multiple parties. We also need to maintain a high level of transparency to make sure that every member of the crew, the sponsors and the ambassadors know what is going on because things change daily, it seems. The smallest of details is important. For example, we ran into a communication issue because RV specifications hadn't been updated with the fact that we are now adding an exterior stage. This changes where we can park the RV for the parties drastically. As soon as I updated our shared Google Doc, everyone knew the score.
My favorite part of Google Docs is the live collaboration, though. We have weekly conference calls with the crew where we use a live task list that we are all adding to and crossing off. It's really satisfying to see this document change as we are discussing the points. It really drives home that we are making progress. The added chat features and notes in the docs make them much easier to collaborate in as well. Any questions we have on tasks (who are they assigned to? progress updates?) can be made along the way without messing up the main document.
We also use Google Groups for our email correspondence. We have a group for the Whuffaoke crew and a group for the Whuffaoke local ambassadors. By using these groups, we don't forget who is where when.

Google Docs has made planning Whuffaoke or Bust easier.

Whuffaoke or Bust's first stop is in San Francisco on July 15th. Do you have a story about your experience using Google Docs? Let us know by sharing your story.

Posted by: Jonathan Rochelle, Group Product Manager, Google Docs

Removing the beta label

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

If you look closely in the upper left hand corner of Google Docs later in the day, you'll notice that we've removed the small grey word "beta" from our logo. We're dropped our "beta" label today along with the other Google Apps (Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Talk). You can read more about this change on the Official Google Blog.

Over the past year, we've launched hundreds of features and product improvements to Google Docs, many of which we've documented on this blog and our What's New page. We still have a long "to do" list of features and enhancements that we're actively working on. Look for these changes over the coming months and years.

Posted by: Jonathan Rochelle, Group Product Manager, Google Docs