Google Drive Blog
The latest news and updates from the Google Drive team.
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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