Tag Archives: Editors

Web clipboard to be removed from Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides on September 13th, 2017

The web clipboard in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides was originally developed to improve the copy and paste experience in browsers with fidelity issues. As these issues have become less prevalent across many browsers, we’re looking to simplify the user experience by removing the web clipboard, which is rarely used, on September 13th, 2017. We’re also planning enhancements to the traditional copy and paste functionality in Docs, Sheets, and Slides, so stay tuned for more info.



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Group items vertically in the new Google Sites

We’ve heard that you need to caption photos, arrange content in columns, and do more vertically in the new Google Sites. With your feedback in mind, we’re adding the ability to create “vertical groups” in the new Sites on the web. Once created, you can move and edit these groups as a single entity, as well as drag items in and out of them easily. For more information on grouping items vertically in the new Sites, check out the Help Center.


Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Edit and format text and photos

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An update on the classic Google Sites deprecation timeline

When we launched the new Google Sites last year, we promised to share more information in 2017 on how to migrate from the classic version of Sites. Today, we want to give you a better sense of what’s coming and when, so you can effectively plan for the eventual shutdown of the classic Sites product.

Migration tools

In Q4 2017, we’ll launch features in the classic Sites that will help site owners migrate their content to the new Sites. In 2018, we’ll provide tools that will enable G Suite admins to effectively manage the migration process. Stay tuned for more details on these features and tools later this year.

Deprecation timeline

We plan to take your feedback on these migration tools into account when scheduling the deprecation and shutdown of the classic Sites. With that mind, we’ll only announce a firm timeline after the migration process is underway for many customers.

A few things to note:

  • Once announced, the deprecation schedule will include at least one year of unchanged operation followed by three months of read-only operation. Migration will be possible throughout, including during the read-only phase.
  • When the read-only phase ends, all unmigrated sites will be preserved as a takeout archive.
  • Before deprecating the classic Sites, we’ll ensure that the new Sites includes several features necessary for team sites, portals, knowledge bases, and intranets. These will include at least the following:
    • Search a site
    • Restrict access to published sites
    • More granular access to different sections of sites
    • Embed URLs and code in sites
    • Notifications of site updates
    • Create larger sites, including deeper hierarchy
    • Corporate themes
    • More text formatting options
    • Custom web addresses
    • API capabilities

Follow the G Suite Updates Blog for additional details when these new features and migration tools launch.

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Improved admin controls over offline access to Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides files on the web

Protecting proprietary and sensitive data is a top priority for many G Suite admins, just as is enabling their employees to work anywhere, anytime—with or without an internet connection. Today, we’re making it easier for admins to balance those interests by introducing settings in the Admin console for managing users’ access to Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides files offline.

Going forward, admins will have the following options to control offline access on desktop computers (in the Admin console at Apps > G Suite > Drive and Docs > Data Access):

  1. Control offline access using device policies - If an admin selects this option, she will need to take additional steps to control offline access for her users. IMPORTANT:
    • If an admin does not want to enable offline access for ANY of her users, she should select this option and not take the extra steps to implement device policies on managed computers.
    • If offline access was previously enabled in an organization and an admin selects this option, her users will lose offline access until she takes the extra steps to implement device policies on managed computers.
  2. Allow users to enable offline access (recommended) - If an admin selects this option, his end users will be able to manually enable offline access from their Docs or Drive settings. Before doing so, the user will be asked if the computer is a trusted one and warned not to turn on the setting for any public or shared device.


If offline access is enabled for all or specific computers, recent Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides files on those computers will be automatically synced to the device and made available offline. This should improve the user experience on Docs, Sheets, and Slides, allowing employees to continue working, uninterrupted, even when their internet connection is poor or failing. Please note that these settings will not apply to non-Docs, non-Sheets, and non-Slides files in Drive.


If you previously allowed users to enable offline Docs, the second setting above (Allow users to enable offline access (recommended)) will be ON when these new settings launch, meaning your users will continue to have offline access.


If you previously didn’t allow users to enable offline Docs, the first setting above (Control offline access using device policies) will be ON when these new settings launch, meaning your users will not have offline access until you take the additional steps required to implement it.


Please note that these settings only apply to Docs, Sheets, and Slides in a Chrome browser on a desktop computer; they have no impact on automatic syncing to Android and iOS devices or on files synced using Google Drive for Mac/PC.


Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release 

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI


More Information



Convert text to all CAPS and more in Google Docs

Capitalizing a large portion of text or an especially long title can be a pain. Doing the opposite—converting capital letters to lowercase—is equally a waste of time. With this launch, we’re making those tasks quick and easy in Google Docs on the web.

Starting today, simply choose “Capitalization” from the Format menu in Docs, and select one of the following:

  • lowercase, to make all the letters in your selection lowercase.
  • UPPERCASE, to capitalize all the letters in your selection.
  • Title Case, to capitalize the first letter of each word in your selection.



It’s that easy. Like other recent launches in Docs, this feature allows you to spend less time formatting and more time on the things that matter, like strategizing, collaborating, and developing new ideas.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming in two weeks

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Edit and format a document


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Google Keep now a G Suite core service with Admin console controls and access in Docs

Available to G Suite users with Google Drive since 2013, Google Keep helps employees capture their thoughts, ideas, action items, and more in one easy-to-access place. As of today, Google Keep is a G Suite core service when used within a domain, and it has been added to existing G Suite agreements for most customers. In addition, Keep is now accessible in Google Docs, so employees can easily revisit and repurpose their notes.

G Suite core service
Keep now has the same technical support and service level commitments as any other core service, like Gmail or Google Drive. Going forward, domains using Keep will receive the following benefits:
Additional admin controls
In addition, we’re giving G Suite admins greater control over Keep usage in their organizations, by allowing them to turn the app on or off for their domains. The steps to do so will depend on an organization’s current use of Google Drive. For example:

1. If you currently have Google Drive enabled for your organization, your users have had access to Keep and will continue to have access to Keep following this launch. If you would like to turn Keep access OFF, you can now do so from the Admin console (Apps > G Suite > Keep).

2. If you do not have Drive enabled for your organization, your users have not had access to Keep. Should you choose to turn on Drive in the future, Keep will be turned ON for your organization if you’ve opted into automatically receiving new services in the Admin console and turned OFF for your organization if you’ve chosen to manually enable new services. You will be able enable or disable the application from the Admin console at any time.


When turned on, Keep will respect a subset of the sharing settings applied to Google Drive.

View and create Keep notes in Docs
The improvements to Keep don’t just apply to admins. End users can now view and create Keep notes in Google Docs on the web. Starting today, simply select “Keep notepad” from the Tools menu to pull up a sidebar containing your notes from Keep (and the option to search them). You can then edit those notes and drag and drop them into your document.

If you’re inspired by the content already in your doc, you can create a new note by highlighting the relevant text, right-clicking, and selecting “Save to Keep notepad.” Or, if you simply want to create a new note with brand-new content, you can start typing in the “Take a note...” box in the notepad. All notes you create while in a document will be added to a “related” section within the sidebar. When you then view those notes in Keep, they will include a link back to the document in which they were created.


For additional details, check out More Information below.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Editions:
Available to G Suite Basic, Business, Enterprise, Education, and Nonprofit editions

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins and end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
G Suite Learning Center: Keep
Help Center: Get started with Keep
Help Center: Turn Keep on or off for users
Help Center: Set Keep sharing settings
Help Center: Use Google Keep in a document


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Support for rotated text, accounting number formats, and more in Google Sheets

We’re working hard to ensure that Google Sheets meets your business needs. As part of that effort, today we’re introducing several enterprise-friendly features that you’ve been asking for in Sheets on the web, Android, and iOS:

Rotated text
You can now rotate the text in a cell in Sheets (Format > Text rotation). This is especially useful when you need to fit long header names into thin columns, or when you simply want to fit more text on a single screen.


Accounting number formats
We’re making it easier to read your budgets, expense reports, and other spreadsheets containing monetary amounts by aligning the currency symbols within them (Format > Number > Accounting). We’re also making improvements to the way numbers, decimal points, and repeated characters line up to make them simpler to scan and analyze.


More border styles
You can now choose from several new border styles in Sheets, including various thicknesses and double borders, which are commonly used in financial statements like balance sheets (Toolbar > Borders > Border styles).

Additional improvements on mobile
In addition to the features described above, we’re also launching the following improvements to our mobile apps:
  • Support for using a mouse with the Sheets Android app
  • Ability to view and select existing custom colors in the Sheets Android app
  • Ability to drag and drop rows and columns in the Sheets Android and iOS apps
  • Formatting suggestions in Explore in the Sheets iOS app


For more details, check out the Help Center articles below.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

  • All mobile features
  • Additional border styles on the web

Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming on March 6, 2017

  • Rotated text on the web
  • Accounting number formats on the web

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Edit and format a spreadsheet
Help Center: Format numbers in a spreadsheet
Help Center: Edit rows, columns & cells in a spreadsheet
Help Center: See and use suggested charts and analysis in a spreadsheet


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A new admin privilege for managing custom templates in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms

In November 2016, we introduced custom templates in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms, allowing teams to spend less time formatting and more time brainstorming, collaborating, and sharing their ideas. We also gave G Suite Business, Education, and Enterprise customers the following optional controls in the Admin console:

  • Moderated - require that user-submitted templates be approved by admins with the Drive and Docs admin privilege
  • Restricted - restrict template submission to admins with the Drive and Docs admin privilege
With this launch, it’s no longer necessary to provision the full Drive and Docs privilege to admins who want the ability to moderate and manage templates. Instead, you can grant those admins a new Docs Templates privilege, which gives them the ability to approve templates and modify template settings in the Admin console, but not the authority to change other Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms settings. Admins who retain the full Drive and Docs privilege will continue to be able to manage templates.



This change will allow your organization to manage custom templates in a scalable way, without relinquishing control over sensitive admin settings. For more details on the Docs Templates privilege and for instructions on managing templates, check out the Help Center articles below.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Editions:
Available to G Suite Business, Education, and Enterprise editions only

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Administrator privilege definitions - Docs Templates
Help Center: Enable custom templates for Docs, Sheets, and Slides


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Link to cell ranges in Google Sheets

Because it can be difficult to navigate large and complex spreadsheets, we’re introducing the ability to link to specific cell ranges in Google Sheets on the web.

With this new functionality, you can create a “table of contents” for your spreadsheet, direct others to specific content within your spreadsheet, and retain links to cells when you import spreadsheets from other applications.

To link to cells in your spreadsheet, simply go to "Insert link" > "Select a range of cells to link" and type or highlight the desired range. For more details, visit the Help Center.


Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming on February 21st, 2017

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Add, edit, or remove a link, bookmark, or page break


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Insert videos from Google Drive in Google Slides

Starting today, you can insert and play your Google Drive videos in Google Slides, in addition to videos from YouTube.


Once you’ve added a Drive video to your presentation, you can choose when to start and end it, whether it should autoplay when presenting, and whether it should be muted or play with audio. Simply right-click on the video and select Video options.


If a person viewing your presentation doesn’t have permission to view a video embedded within it, they’ll be prompted to request access.

Note that while you can play Drive videos in Slides on the web and mobile, you can only insert them from the web application. For more details, visit the Help Center.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming in two weeks

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Insert or delete images or videos


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