In today’s technology dominated time, almost everything has been revolutionized. Advance in technology has made our lives much easier. One good example is Google. Be it Google search or any other application offered by Google, today we can not really imagine our lives without these applications. Keeping up with its tradition of coming up with convenient and time saving applications, Google introduced Google Docs. Today almost every office, every business owner makes use of Google docs to make work easier and convenient.

 

Google Docs is a suite of products. Using Google Docs you can create various types of documents and work on these documents in real time with other people. Moreover, you can also store your documents and other files online. And the best thing is that it call can be done without paying a penny. That is, it is absolutely free. All you need to have is an internet connection. With that you can easily access your documents and files from any other computer anywhere in the world. In fact, there are certain things that can be done even without an internet connection. Read further and you will find out all the detailed information about Google docs.

Let us first talk about the document list. Google Docs lets you create documents, spreadsheets, other files, and collections. You can also upload files from your computer, manage them and store files and folders. You can also share your documents. The preview feature lets you see how your document looks like before you open them and share it with other people. You can also view images and videos that you have uploaded to your Documents list. It also lets you search for items by type, name and visibility setting.

 

One of the best things is that you can convert most of the file types to Google Docs format. With the format feature, you can add zing to your documents. There are options paint  format, margins, spacing, and fonts. You can also invite others to collaborate on a doc. You can also provide them with edit, comment or view access. It is also possible to collaborate online in real time and chat with others. You can check a document’s revision history with the help of the History feature. Moreover, you can get back to any other version you want anytime. You can download Google docs to RTF, PDF, HTML, Open office, Word or even Zip files. It also lets you translate a document to many languages. You can attach and email these documents as well.

 

With the help of Google docs, one can easily create, share, and edit documents online. Some of the things that should be kept in mind are- try to convert as many file types to Google docs format.

 

If you want to view many file types online including PDFs as well, you can do that using Google Docs Viewer. It also enables oyu to create a link using which others can view your document easily in any of the browsers. You can directly access the Google Docs Viewer by going to docs.google.com/viewer. What’s really good about this is that it supports more than 15 file types. Some of the file types are Microsoft Word (.Doc and .Docx), Microsoft Excel (.Xls and .Xlsx), Adobe pages (.Pages), Adobe Illustrator (.AI), Adobe Photoshop (.PSD). The great thing is that Google Docs Viewer is directly connected to Gmail. To check an attachment you received in Gmail, you can click the ‘View’ link. It will display the attached file in Google Docs Viewer.

 

Now let us talk about navigating the Google Docs viewer page. Whenever you upload a file to Google Docs and do not convert it to Google Docs format, then it will have a Google Docs Viewer page. This page can be accesses by clicking the file’s title in the document list. You can also access it by following a link that is shared with you. This page gives information like title of the file, the file owner, time when file was uploaded, and preview of the file. You can see the revision history of the file and change the sharing settings, that is, if you have owner or edit rights. The file can also be downloaded and printed by clicking on File menu and selecting ‘Download as’ option. You can also search the content.

 

It is time to move on to Spreadsheets. The spreadsheets can be imported and converted. You can use formatting and formula editing . By doing this you can calculate results and give the desired look to your data. It also lets you chat with other people who are making changes in the spreadsheet in real time. Charts and gadgets can be created. Moreover, you can embed a spreadsheet or individual sheets in your website.

 

When it comes to presentations, there is a whole lot of things that you can do with them. First of all, you can edit and share the presentations with friends and colleagues. It is also possible to import and convert existing presentations in .pptx and .pps file types. The presentations can also be downloaded as a PDF, a PPT and .txt file. The slides can be formatted and images and videos can be added to them.  You can also allow your presentations to be viewed in real time. You can also embed your presentations and publish them in a website. This will enable your presentations to be accessed by a wider audience. Flowcharts, diagrams etc can be drawn within a presentation. To create interesting presentations you can add animations, themes and slide transitions.

 

Similarly drawings can also be edited and shared with friends and colleagues. The drawings can be inserted in a document, spreadsheet and presentation.

 

Another interesting feature of Google Docs is that you can add viewers and editors. You can not only share your docs with people you want but also specify the level of access you want to provide. By default, the visibility option for doc is ‘Private’. Therefore, your doc can only be seen by the people with whom you are sharing the doc. Moreover, it is also possible and very simple to change the visibility option of your Docs. You just need to follow these simple steps. First of all, go the doc you want to share and open it, look for the ‘Share’ button in the upper right corner of the doc. A sharing setting window will appear. At the bottom of the window, and under ‘add people’ option, simply type the email address of the people you want to share your doc with. You can either add a mailing list or a single person.

 

There are plenty of things that you can do with these great Google docs. You can

• create, name and delete a document
• format a document
• upgrade a doc to the new version of Google docs
• change the font style
• use bookmarks in a doc, and a lot more things

 

Therefore, it goes without saying that you can make your task much simpler and well organized by using Google docs. It not only saves time and efforts but also lets you share things with anyone you want. So go ahead and make optimum use of Google docs and it’s plenty of wonderful features that will make you job so easy.

Adam Parker is working as an E-marketing Executive at HTMLFirm. HTMLFirm is specialized in providing PSD to HTML, PSD to WordPress, PSD to Magento Conversion services.