Tag Archives: suggested edits

2014 cheers for Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms

Cross-posted from the Google for Work Blog

90,000 hours. That’s the amount of time the average person spends working during their lifetime. To put that in perspective, if you spend 90,000 hours watching movies and did nothing else — no sleep, no breaks — you would be watching for 10 years non-stop.

Since you spend so much time at work, we want you to have the latest Google Apps updates when they're available to make working easier. That means your apps are constantly being updated with new and helpful features almost every week to ensure you have the latest tools, security updates and speed improvements — as soon as they’re ready. And that applies across the Docs editors as well. So as a busy 2014 comes to a close, we want to highlight a few of the new ways get things done with Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings and Forms.

Work with any kind of file
You come across all types of files all day. The last thing you want to worry about is what software you need in order to view or edit these files. For this reason, we made it so you can open and edit Office files directly in Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, on your desktop, phone or tablet.

Make suggestions
Editing files in real-time with others is a great way to work together across the Docs editors, and many of you asked for the ability to suggest changes in other peoples’ documents, rather than making edits directly. Now you can do just that with Suggest Edits in Docs. Make suggestions that can be accepted or rejected with a single click. And when you convert a Word file to Docs or vice versa, your tracked changes will convert as well.
Work on any of your devices.We created new mobile apps for Docs, Sheets and Slides across Android and iOS, where you can edit your documents, presentations and spreadsheets on the go. While working in the cloud means you have access to your documents on any of these devices, you can still access or create documents even if you don’t have a data or WiFi connection.

Edit your images directlySometimes the best way to convey a thought is visually and you need your images to look just right, which is why we made it easier to edit and adjust images. You can now crop your images, even masking the crop to specific shapes, and add borders in Docs, Slides and Drawings. Plus, you can connect objects and images in Slides and Drawings, recolor and change opacity of images in Slides, and even add effects.

Get things done fasterWe want to help you take care of your common tasks. And you know what lots of people make in documents? Bullet lists. So now, just type an asterisk (*) and it will automatically become bullets in Docs and Slides. Nobody likes having to do the same thing twice (unless you’re Santa) so just copy and paste your charts between different spreadsheets in Sheets. For all the regression lovers out there, you can also add trendlines, and to further visualize trends, you can add miniature charts, or sparklines, into individual cells.

Get answers to your surveysForms is a great way to gather information, and across 2014, we added lots of new ways to ask questions and get answers. You can customize themes in Forms to add your own flare and create short URLs that are easier to share. There are also lots of new question options, like limiting one response per person and shuffling the answer order.

Add tons of functionality from 3rd partiesAdd-ons for Docs, Sheets and Forms are tools created by developers that help you do those extra things you need help with, whether it’s printing mailing labels or adding MLA-approved citations, right from your document.

Let there be tablesYou can add borders and backgrounds to your tables, and merge cells together to get your tables to look just how you want. And when you convert your legacy files to Docs, the table cells and borders will still be there so you can keep working.And let everyone, including blind and low-vision users, get work doneAcross Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings and Forms, it’s much easier to use a screen reader, with better text-to-voice verbalization and improvements to keyboard navigation. You can now use braille support to read and enter text in Docs, Slides and Drawings. And you can collaborate easier with others in Docs, Sheets, Slides or Drawings because screen readers announce when people enter or leave the document, and you’ll hear when others are editing alongside you. We’ll continue to make a ton of updates behind the scenes to ensure everything keeps running faster and smoother next year. Four cheers (Docs! Sheets! Slides! Forms!) for a happy work life in 2015.

Posted by Ryan Tabone, Director of Product Management, Docs editors

Work with any file, on any device, any time with new Docs, Sheets, and Slides

Odds are, you don't use just one device throughout the day—maybe it's a tablet at home over breakfast, a phone on the train to work, and then a computer or laptop once you're in the office. In other words, you expect to be able to get stuff done no matter where you are, which device you’re using, or what you’re working on.

That’s why today, Docs, Sheets, and Slides are getting major updates on both mobile and desktop. With this release, you can now work on any document, at any time, on any device, both with and without an Internet connection.

Mobile apps for Docs, Sheets and now Slides 
We recently launched mobile apps for Docs and Sheets that allow you to create and edit files on the go, even if you’re offline. We’re rounding out the trio with a new Slides mobile app that’s available starting today on Android and in the coming weeks on iOS.
Edit and share Office files — without Office 
Sometimes people send you files and you need to be able to open them, make some edits, and send them back. If they don’t use Docs, Sheets and Slides it can be a challenge. Starting today, you no longer have to worry, because both the web and mobile apps for Docs, Sheets, and Slides let you edit Office files—without conversion—so you can now edit and send back files in their original format.

The updated mobile apps for Docs, Sheets and Slides come with Office editing built right in, and our new Chrome extension allows you to edit and share files directly from Google Drive, Gmail or from your Chromebook, where the extension is pre-installed. These updates will be available starting today, but may take a couple of days to fully roll out.

Of course, if you want to collaborate seamlessly with others at the same time, simply convert the files to Docs, Sheets or Slides.
Suggested Edits: a new way to collaborate 
People love using Docs because it’s so easy to work together in one place, rather than making edits and giving feedback by emailing multiple versions of the same document.

But sometimes instead of giving your collaborators free reign to edit away, you’d rather they make suggestions that you can accept or reject later. That’s why today we’re excited to add Suggested Edits in Docs. This new feature is now available for anyone with commenting access in Google Docs on the web, and is coming soon to our mobile apps.

Work the way you want 
With today’s updates to Docs, Sheets, and Slides, we’ve got you covered, regardless of how, where, or when you need to get something done. You now have mobile apps for Docs, Sheets and Slides, the ability to edit and share Office files, and a brand new way to collaborate with Suggested edits. It’s a big update, but more importantly, we hope it’s a big improvement for you.

Posted by Ryan Tabone, Director of Product Management