Google Docs has a number of undeniable advantages, such as remote access, work with many file formats, and abilities for collaboration.
Despite these obvious facts, there are still people who think the functionality of GDocs is limited, and the interface lacks several essential functions. Is that really true?
Back in 2007, when Google Docs was first launched, it really lacked a number of features that MS Office was equipped with.
Today Google Docs is a powerful, full-fledged tool for work, providing all the necessary functions you need to create and publish your ideas.
Ritcha Ranjan, a person who stood behind Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides creation uncovers essential tips that make your work in GDocs uber productive.
1. Use Google Docs offline
Now Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are finally available in the Chrome browser offline.
This means you no longer have to save the documents on the desktop to work with them staying at some places that are out of Internet reach.
Whether you are “hiking or biking” complete your projects on the go before the deadline, for this select the “offline” mode in the menu of a chosen document.
2. Try the visual navigation
Navigation in the jungle of folders and files can be greatly simplified with colors. The hardships of lifelong sorting are solved as simple as right mouse clicking on the target folder and choosing “Change color”.
Thus, for instance, you may personify your files, marking the folders designated as “Urgent” in the red color, marking ongoing projects in green, the folders with pending tasks you may color in blue.
Each time opening the Drive you will see a folder with urgent documents, that need to be dealt with first in a queue.
3. Hook up your GDocs with apps
It seems everyone knows about handy Chrome browser extensions but very few utilize useful Google Docs add-ons.
Nowadays, workplaces are very complicated, employees use a variety of applications and services for their purposes.
When integrated into the GDocs, add-ons allow you to manage the writing like a professional editor, here is a good selection of them:
- Styles: setting the document type in one click
Styles is one of those Google Doc plugins that lets you apply a certain style (combination of the font with a harmonious color) to your document immediately, it contains over 20 templates to select from.
- WordPress: Posting from GDocs to WordPress
You can post from the doc to the blog directly. For this, open the WordPress add-on in GDocs, save the document as a new draft to the blog, using your current WordPress.com account.
- DocSecrets: protecting secret information
Want to share only parts of the document and keep the rest of it in secret? Add DocSecrets add-on and hide the parts you want to protect from everyone else with a password.
4. Hack the routine
Check originality & format bibliography
Copywriters, journalists, students, and all who people involved in text creation, proofreading, and editing can verify the authenticity of the written material with plagiarism checker Unicheck.
The tool will scan the paper against web sources, open access databases, libraries and, if needed, compare several uploaded documents between each other.
As well, Unicheck has launched GDoc add-on which removes the necessity to deal with extra tabs so that the writer could edit the text immediately in the document.
Editing citations, references, and bibliography becomes easier as they’re highlighted in blue and violet colors in similarity reports, meaning they’re formatted properly.
Replace words in text automatically
Google Docs corrects and replaces certain things in your document automatically, by default.
For instance, as you put the links in the text they get activated by default or the combination that you use to imitate the arrow, like –> gets transferred into actually drawn arrow →
In addition to this, you can configure the automatic replacement for any words or symbols in any language, so that your word processor gets all suited to your needs.
For this, just select Tools → Settings and configure the correction settings up to your tastes.
Cut the time with hot keys
Did you know that the majority of hot key combinations are working in Google Docs?
Such combinations like “Ctrl+C“ (copy), “Ctrl+V“ (paste), “Ctrl+Z“ (undo) or “Ctrl+A“ (highlight the whole text), might be great time savers for you but there’s more to this.
For instance, you can open and view the statistics of the document with “Ctrl + Shift + C“ combination. To view the full list of commands, press “Ctrl+/“, or “⌘+/“ if you are on Mac.
If you press the key combination “Ctrl + Shift + Y“, the built-in dictionary will open at the right side of the document, giving you the quick interpretation of any word you need.
The feature is very convenient if you look at it from the time-saving point of view. Navigating such search is much easier than switching between tabs each time you need to google the unknown term.
In the nutshell
This list of tips could have been twice shorter if you’d stumbled upon it several years ago, however, Google Docs is improving and revolutionizing every year.
Today Google Docs still hides many undiscovered functions up its sleeve that we have yet to find, and, more importantly, yet to discover in the nearest future.
With more than three hundred applications and hidden tricks, everyone can personalize their work environment, making it the most productive place for creation and document management, just try and find the perfect ones for you.