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Posting to a blog is a bit too easy

Andrew Chang — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:58:00 +0000

Posted by: Andrew Chang, Marketing Manager

Oops. As many of you have noticed, yesterday I accidentally posted my personal to-do list onto this blog. I realized my mistake only when a fellow Googler IM'd me: "any idea what's going on here? Just checked the blog, and there's a new (inexplicable) post." Soon after, I unpublished the post - because I'm assuming that you, our dear readers, aren't too interested in reading about my weekend activities (cleaning my shelves) and that I'm shopping for tofu and one large cabbage this weekend.

Here's what happened: I was testing out a feature that allows you to create and edit blog posts in Docs and publish them directly to your blog. I picked a to-do list that my wife and I collaborate on for our weekend chores and grocery list. Then I clicked "Share" and "Publish as a web page" (thinking that I'd be posting to a test blog of mine). One button click later, my list was out there for the world to see. I've since changed my settings to not post to this blog.

Embarrassed... yes. Next time I'll try to be a little less trigger-happy with the 'Post to blog' button.

Update: Added link to the Google Docs Help Center describing how to post to your blog.

Introducing ‘Google Docs Guide 2′

Andrew Chang — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:55:00 +0000

Posted by: Regina Dinneen, Consumer User Operations

Hello faithful Google Docs Blog readers -- I'm Regina, and I work in our Mountain View, California office. I'm a San Francisco native, and when I'm not at work, you can find me playing soccer (or "football") 2-3 nights per week. Another passion is travel and learning about new cultures: I've had the opportunity to live in Japan, South Africa and Ireland. And of course I'm always pushing my friends to give Google Docs a test drive. Recently I got a few of them to try out the new forms feature (big win!).

I also post under the ID "Google Docs Guide 2" on the Google Docs Help Group, mostly to let you know when specific issues have been fixed or when new features have been added. Some days you may not see any posts for me, but I'm always watching the action. My main goal is to let you help one another. I'll only jump in when an issue can't be fixed with normal troubleshooting steps. I've found that sometimes you can answer the "How do I" questions better than I can.

Here are two examples of how your feedback has helped improve Google Docs:

1) Issue: Autosum in Danish and Swedish locales
Quite a few people reported a bug with Autosum in spreadsheets. We told our engineering team, and they fixed it. Without the multiple reports from the group, we might have missed this one. (Thanks, MacLeod, ahab and Gill!)

2) Issue: Email notifications about changes to your spreadsheet
This feature was listed on our suggestions form and in the group where you can suggest new features and vote on what you think we should work on next. Many people voted for email notifications, and it recently became a reality.

Please also be aware that I often update our known issues page and suggestions page with topics I've seen from the group. So if you aren't already a member of the Help Group, join today and let your voice be heard!

Lights, camera, Google Docs and YOU

Andrew Chang — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:50:00 +0000

Posted by: Meredith Whittaker, Program Manager

Since first launching Google Docs, we've heard from many people who are passionate about using it, and have created their own resources, from help videos to user guides, to help others work smarter with Google Docs.

And now, we're unveiling the Google Docs Community Channel on YouTube to showcase all the great videos you create about how to use Google Docs. What you'll see here is skill and passion expressed in video.

Foreign language teacher Stephan Rinke put together an introduction to Google Docs for his colleagues; "Paintbuoy" uploaded step-by-step visual instructions on creating forms (with a soundtrack!); and Kara and Will from the Maynard Institute joke around as they describe using Google Docs as a content management system.

Each of these is produced by someone who wants to help more of you learn about Google Docs. We encourage you to get involved in the Google Docs Community Channel to share your ideas and your content, too. Contributing a video is easy: First, break out your cameras, your screencapture software and your creativity. When you're done, upload your video and get in touch using the "message" function in the channel (or simply enter your information in this form). Tell us the URL of your video. We'll feature any piece that's appropriate, and highlight our favorites regularly right here, on our blog.

Bringing the cloud with you

Andrew Chang — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:45:00 +0000

Posted by: Philip Tucker, Software Engineer, Google Docs

We know that many of you have been waiting for offline access to Google Docs, and I'm happy to tell you we'll be rolling it out over the next few weeks, starting today with a small percentage of users.

Here's why I'm excited about this development. My migration from the desktop to 'the cloud' started with my Gmail account. I could access my mail from anywhere, search it all in one place, and never need to migrate to a new account. It was great. Then I started using Google Calendar to organize my schedule all in one place.

So now I find myself with this drive to make my desktop as sparse as possible, both in data and software. I want to move it all into the cloud. There are still times I use my desktop word processor, but I want to minimize context switching between apps. Cloud computing is great, but you need the cloud to make it work. On an airplane, on the shuttle commuting to work, or at home when my cable modem goes down, I want to work on my documents. And, until now, that usually meant saving a copy and editing on the desktop.

Now there's a better solution. With Google Docs offline (powered by Google Gears), I can take my little piece of the cloud with me wherever I go. Once enabled, I have a local version of my document list and editors, along with my documents.

As long as I have an Internet connection, every change I make is saved to the cloud. When I lose my connection, I sacrifice some features, but I can still access my documents (for this initial release, you can view and edit word processing documents; right now we don't support offline access to presentations or spreadsheets - see our help center for details). Everything I need is saved locally. And I do everything through my web browser, even when I'm offline (the goodness that Google Gears provides). When my connection comes back, my documents sync up again with the server.

It's all pretty seamless: I don't have to remember to save my documents locally before packing my laptop for a trip. I don't have to remember to save my changes as soon as I get back online. And I don't have to switch applications based on network connectivity. With the extra peace of mind, I can more fully rely on this tool for my important documents.

One more note: Offline access is only available in English. We're working on offline access in other languages. It will also be available to Google Apps users soon, and domain administrators that want it now can opt-in via their control panel.

Now available in 48 languages

Andrew Chang — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 05:36:00 +0000

Posted by: Andrew Chang, Marketing Manager

On Tuesday, we launched Google Docs in 8 Indic languages: Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil, and Telugu. These languages are spoken by hundreds of millions of people, many of whom live in India, Sri Lanka, and other countries in South East Asia. With this launch, Docs now support 48 languages.

To use Google Docs in your preferred language, just sign in, click ‘Settings’ in the upper right hand corner, and select a new interface language.

Document Freedom Day

Andrew Chang — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:56:00 +0000

Posted by: Andrew Chang, Marketing Manager

Today is Document Freedom Day. Teams from all over the world are raising awareness for open standards for documents. Read more about Google's support for Document Freedom Day on the Official Google Blog.

New Toolbar and Menus

Andrew Chang — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:35:00 +0000

Posted by: Darren Delaye, User Experience Designer

Every so often, we hear from users that they have trouble finding a particular feature, like "Check Spelling" or "Word Count" or "Find and Replace".

So a while ago, our Docs User Research team worked on a "card-sort" study in which we disconnected all features in the application from the places we had put them in the UI, and asked some people what the labels and icons meant to them, and how they would group the concepts they represented. One of the things we found was that names such as File, Edit, Format, and Tools resonated as "where you might look" for certain editing features. Check spelling? Seems to fit in a "Tools" group to many people. Find and replace? People generally look for that in an "Edit" group.

So now, when you're looking for one of our features, you'll find it in the redesigned menus, hopefully right where you expect it. For the frequent actions you need quick access to during editing, you'll find most of those at the top level in the toolbar.

If you find yourself hunting around for something that was there before, don't be shy about posting in our user group. We'll jump in to answer your question there if our user experts get stumped. ;-}

Oh, yes, there's one more thing that we launched today. About a month ago, we removed the "Save" and "Save & close" buttons from the upper right hand corner of Docs when you're editing documents. For those of you who told us that those buttons were useful and that you missed them, you'll be happy to see that we've brought them back!

Teachers: Has Google Docs changed how you teach?

Andrew Chang — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:22:00 +0000

Posted by: Joelle Fornengo, Google Docs Operations

We're hearing that teachers are using Google Docs in innovative ways. For example, a 9th-10th grade teacher in California recently told us:

"I first started using Docs last year in my Freshman English class and my Beginning Journalism class and I loved it right away. There were several reasons why I loved it. First, my students loved collaborating online both at home and at school and it made it easier for me to teach writing. For my Romeo and Juliet unit, I divided my students into pairs and assigned them a persuasive essay about 'Who/What was responsible for the death of Romeo and Juliet.' I asked each student to pick a text color (so I could see who wrote what) and a position and then have an online discussion defending their position. They loved it and every day that week they would come into class asking 'Can we go to the computer lab to work on our essays? Pleasssssse' The results were great and their enthusiasm for writing was contagious. Docs has changed the way that I teach writing and made me a more effective teacher. "

Teachers, we're asking you to raise your voice (or your typing fingers, as the case may be), and let us know who you are, how you use Google Docs within the classroom and what you'd like to see us do in the future.

To help you help us effortlessly, we've used the spreadsheets forms feature to create a quick survey.

So have at it! Give us your stories and we promise we'll listen.