Tag Archives: Google Docs

Improvements to content organization in Google Docs

What’s changing

We’re rolling out improvements to the formatting and customization options for tables of contents in Google Docs. You now have the options to: 
  • Toggle between three default styles 
  • Toggle page numbers 
  • Toggle tab leader styling (adds lines between a heading and the page number) 
  • Include and indent headings based on levels 
With these enhanced customizations, we hope this highly requested feature refines titles and headings to personalize the content of your document. 

We’re also reorganizing the options included in the table properties sidebar in Docs to make it easier for you to find and utilize table formatting options. Upon adding or editing a table, you will notice a new “Table” section with alignment preferences and a new “Cell” section with clearer cell-specific formatting options within the table properties sidebar. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: 
    • For tables, go to Insert > Table > click the “Table options” button in the top toolbar to open the Table properties sidebar. You can also right-click a table and select “Table properties” to open the sidebar. Visit the Help Center to learn more about adding and editing tables. 
    • For table of contents, go to Insert > Table of contents. In paginated mode, there are three table of contents quick layout options: 
      • Plain text 
      • Dotted 
      • Links 
    • Right-click the newly created table of contents and select “Table of contents options” to open the sidebar. Visit the Help Center to learn more about adding a title, heading, or table of contents in a document. 

Rollout pace 

Table of Contents: 
Table sidebar: 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers 
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts

Resources 

Improvements to content organization in Google Docs

What’s changing

We’re rolling out improvements to the formatting and customization options for tables of contents in Google Docs. You now have the options to: 
  • Toggle between three default styles 
  • Toggle page numbers 
  • Toggle tab leader styling (adds lines between a heading and the page number) 
  • Include and indent headings based on levels 
With these enhanced customizations, we hope this highly requested feature refines titles and headings to personalize the content of your document. 

We’re also reorganizing the options included in the table properties sidebar in Docs to make it easier for you to find and utilize table formatting options. Upon adding or editing a table, you will notice a new “Table” section with alignment preferences and a new “Cell” section with clearer cell-specific formatting options within the table properties sidebar. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: 
    • For tables, go to Insert > Table > click the “Table options” button in the top toolbar to open the Table properties sidebar. You can also right-click a table and select “Table properties” to open the sidebar. Visit the Help Center to learn more about adding and editing tables. 
    • For table of contents, go to Insert > Table of contents. In paginated mode, there are three table of contents quick layout options: 
      • Plain text 
      • Dotted 
      • Links 
    • Right-click the newly created table of contents and select “Table of contents options” to open the sidebar. Visit the Help Center to learn more about adding a title, heading, or table of contents in a document. 

Rollout pace 

Table of Contents: 
Table sidebar: 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers 
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts

Resources 

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – March 10, 2023

1 New update

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are fully launched or in the process of rolling out (rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete), launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time (if not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete), and available to all Google Workspace and G Suite customers.


Additional details for the updated Gmail experience on Android foldable devices and tablets 
Last month, we announced an improved Chat, Meet, and Gmail experience on Android foldable devices and tablets. To provide additional details on functionality, Gmail supports a 2-pane view in landscape orientation only. | This is now available. | Learn more. 


Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.


Indicate your Google Voice availability with more options
We’re making it easier for you to indicate your availability in Google Voice on web and mobile. Previously, you could only indicate your availability for all of your ring groups. This update gives you greater flexibility to manage your Ring Group availability in Google Voice, without the need to sign-out of Voice or block all incoming calls using “Do Not Disturb”. | Available to Google Voice Standard and Premier customers only. | Learn more. 


Refreshed interface for Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides
In the coming weeks, you’ll notice a new look and feel for Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides on the web. Following the release of Google Material Design 3, the refreshed user interface is purposefully designed to streamline core collaboration journeys across our products. | Learn more. 


New updates for Google Meet on Poly Android-based appliances
We are rolling out updates to Google Meet to support our upcoming launch of Google Meet on Poly Android-based appliances. Within the Google admin console, admins can enroll Poly devices and include reporting of these new appliances. The Google Meet hardware experience will become available in the upcoming Poly OS 4.0 update as part of the Poly Studio X series family. | Learn more.


Managed Android devices must upgrade to Android Device Policy during March 2023
In 2019, we announced that a new Android management client, Android Device Policy, would replace the legacy Google Apps Device Policy client. We’re now in the final stages of this upgrade. All devices with the Google Apps Device Policy will lose access during March 2023 if they have not already upgraded. | Learn more. 


Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog post for additional details.


Refreshed interface for Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides

What’s changing 

In the coming weeks, you’ll notice a new look and feel for Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides on the web. Following the release of Google Material Design 3, the refreshed user interface is purposefully designed to streamline core collaboration journeys across our products. 

In Docs, Sheets, and Slides, you’ll see improvements such as: 
  • A simplified user interface at the top of your docs, sheets, and slides, helping you find frequently used actions faster 
  • Additional user experience improvements in commenting, background, rulers, and gridlines. 
  • Note that while there are no changes in functionality, some features have been relocated to reduce clutter within the new interface. Notably, you can find the latest status info for the doc, such as last edit and version history, via a single entry point: the clock icon in the top right corner.



In Drive, you’ll see improvements such as:
  • Key actions surfaced inline on files, for quick access and increased productivity. 
  • Ability to select multiple items at a time and undertake batch operations for frequent tasks.
  • New search chips (including type, owner, and last modified) to help you find files faster.




Who’s impacted

End users

Why it matters 

These key visual and interactive design changes will help you get your best work done faster by emphasizing the tools within our products used most frequently. For more information, check out the latest on the Workspace blog.

Rollout pace


Availability


  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers
  • Available to users with personal Google accounts


Resources


Introducing new smart canvas features in Google Sheets and Google Docs

What’s changing

As we continue to innovate with smart canvas, we’re introducing even more smart chips and a new way to display dates across Google Sheets that will make it easier for you to quickly preview and interact with dates, locations, and financial information. Additionally, we’re adding a stopwatch chip to Google Docs that can track how long it takes to complete an activity, helping you stay on task and on time. 

Place chips: When a Google Maps place chip is added to your Sheet, you can open the location directly in Google Maps, and see a preview of the location or find directions. 
Expanded date capabilities: Include dates in your Sheet more easily using the @ entry point with shortcuts like @today, @yesterday, @tomorrow, and @date. Clicking on the date will display a date picker that allows you to update dates as needed. 
Finance chips: Add Google Finance entities, such as stocks, mutual funds, and currencies into a Sheet. Hover over the chip to preview information depending on entity type. For example, for stocks, you can see company name, listing Index, stock price, and market cap. Clicking the chip will take you to the entity’s dedicated Finance page. 

Stopwatch Chips: When a stopwatch chip is inserted, you can start, stop, and reset the timer as needed. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: 
    • You can insert a finance or map chip in a Sheets cell by following one or all of the following methods: 
      • Type “@” followed by a Place or Finance entity 
      • Navigate to Insert > Smart chips 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about inserting smart chips in Google Sheets.
    • To insert a date and activate the date picker, type “@” followed by "date", "today", "yesterday", or "tomorrow". You can also access the date picker by double tapping manually entered dates.
    • You can insert a stopwatch chip in Docs by following one or all of the following methods: 
      • Type “@” followed by “Stopwatch” 
      • Navigate to Insert > Smart chips 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about inserting smart chips & building blocks in your Google Doc. 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers 
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 

Introducing Trusted Types in Google Workspace

What’s changing

We’re improving the client-side security of Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites, Jamboard, Drawings, and Drive with Trusted Types. This will provide an extra layer of protection around Document Object Model (DOM) APIs that are used by the apps listed above or third-party extensions. 

This new enforcement mode will require third-party extensions to use typed objects instead of strings when assigning values to DOM APIs, and will begin rolling out on March 23, 2023. Once Trusted Types are fully enforced, the Trusted Types directive will be present in the Content Security Policy (CSP) header: 

Who’s impacted

Developers (relying on any Chrome extensions that modify DOM APIs.) 


Why it’s important

Trusted Types is a feature that further enhances our advanced data protection controls to keep users and data safe across more of the apps they use everyday. 


Additional details 

Screen readers, braille devices, and screen magnification will not change with Trusted Types. However, we recommend admins and developers check third party extensions for Trusted Types violations. Visit the Help Center to learn more about Accessibility for Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, & Drawings. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • Developers: 
    • To make code Trusted Types compliant, signal to the browser that data being used within the context of these DOM APIs is trustworthy by creating a Trusted Type special object. 
    • There are several ways to be Trusted Types compliant, such as removing the offending code, using a library, or creating a Trusted Types policy. To ensure a seamless experience for users, these techniques can be employed before Trusted Types enforcement is rolled out. 
    • Visit the Chrome DevTools engineering blog to learn more about implementing CSP and Trusted Types debugging in Chrome DevTools. 
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers 
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – February 3, 2023

3 New updates

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are fully launched or in the process of rolling out (rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete), launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time (if not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete), and available to all Google Workspace and G Suite customers.


In-line replies for email notifications in Google Classroom 
We’re making Classroom email notifications more functional and easier to use. With in-line replies for comments, teachers and students will be able to easily stay up to date and respond to communication within Classroom. Public and private comment notifications will have the freshest information, like the latest comment threads, and you can now easily respond to comments within the email itself. This will enable teachers to quickly reply to their students without having to switch back and forth between their email and Classroom. | Rollout to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains began January 30, 2023 and is expected to be completed by February 20, 2023. | Available to Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers, and users with personal Google Accounts only. | Learn more. 

Expanding color options in Google Slides, Docs, Sheets and Drawings
In Google Slides, Docs, Sheets and Drawings, you can now select colors in the color palette tool by using RGBA values. In addition, you can also customize colors by using an eyedropper tool and selecting any color on your screen within the color palette. | Rolling out to Rapid Release domains now; launch to Scheduled Release domains planned for February 15, 2023. | Learn more. 
More ways to work with BigQuery data in Google Sheets
We’re expanding your ability to access, analyze, visualize, and share billions of rows of BigQuery data from Google Sheets:
Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts only. Not available to legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers.


Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.


Google Sheets adds powerful new functions for advanced analysis
We announced 11 additional functions that will introduce new concepts, provide you with more efficient functions, and help with more advanced analysis | Learn more.


Explore Looker data using Connected Sheets
We added the ability to interactively explore modeled data from Looker, Google Cloud’s modern business intelligence platform, using Connected Sheets. | Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as users with personal Google Accounts only. | Learn more.


Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog post for additional details.

Rapid Release Domains: 

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – January 13, 2023

1 New update
Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are fully launched or in the process of rolling out (rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete), launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time (if not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete), and available to all Google Workspace and G Suite customers.



Find apps and app commands in Chat with a new Integration Menu 
We’re making it easier to discover and use Chat apps with a new Integration Menu. Simply click the (+) button next to the compose bar in a Chat message to see installed apps. You can also browse the slash commands that the apps support and execute them. On the web, the Integration Menu includes a search functionality that allows you to browse new apps. | Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Frontline, and legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers only. 


Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.



New option to view non-printing characters in Google Docs 
You can now choose to display non-printing characters in order to see how a document is laid out. | Learn more. 

Improvements to voice features in Google Docs and Slides 
We’ve improved the features that enable you to type and edit by speaking in Google Docs or in Google Slides speaker notes, and present slides with automatic captions to display a speaker's words in real time. | Learn more. 

Manage all Google Workspace API activity from a single location 
Within the Google Cloud Console, you can now view and manage all Google Workspace API activity. Here, you’ll find a centralized view of which APIs are currently running and their associated requests. | Learn more. 

Increasing efficiency through better meeting room management with room release 
Room release, an existing feature that releases booked meeting rooms when all but one attendee declines the invitation will now be ON by default. There will be a transition period, from January 11 - March 6, 2023, where admins can opt out structured meeting rooms or user groups from this room release setting. | Available to Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and legacy G Suite Business customers only. | Learn more. 

New in-meeting reactions for Google Meet 
You can now use emojis to share in-meeting reactions in Google Meet on Web, Meet Hardware devices, and iOS, with Android coming soon. | Learn more. 

Introducing simpler conversation creation in Google Chat 
The process to create conversations in Chat will be much simpler by combining the flow for creating one-on-one conversations and group conversations. | Learn more. 

View speaker notes while presenting Google Slides in Google Meet
In October of 2022, we introduced the ability to present Google Slides directly in Google Meet. To build upon this, you can now view your speaker notes within Google Meet. | Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Education Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Nonprofits customers only. | Learn more. 



Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog post for additional details.


Scheduled Release Domains:

Rapid and Scheduled Release Domains:

For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).

Improvements to voice features in Google Docs and Slides

What’s changing

We’re improving the features that enable you to: 
These enhancements will help reduce transcription errors and minimize lost audio during transcription. The improvements also include expanded availability to most major browsers. Additionally, captions in Slides will now contain automatically generated punctuation.


Who’s impacted 

End users 


Why it’s important 

We hope this launch leads to more inclusive and accessible user interactions within Docs and Slides. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers 
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 

New option to view non-printing characters in Google Docs

What’s changing

When viewing or editing a Google Doc, non-printing characters such as line breaks, section breaks, tabs, and spaces are not visible. Starting today, you can choose to display non-printing characters in order to see how a document is laid out. When turned on, you will see symbols or text to represent the following: 
  • Paragraph/Hard break 
  • Line/Soft break 
  • Section break 
  • Page break 
  • Column break 
  • Tab 
  • Space 
non printing characters

Who’s impacted 

End users 


Why it’s important 

This feature provides a visual representation of what controls the formatting in a document, allowing you to make appropriate edits much easier. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers 
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources