A Practical Guide To Selected Features Of Google Docs


by Kiwi Polemicist


You can't please everyone all of the time, so I'm not going to attempt to do that here. Instead I have covered those features of Google Docs word processing that I think are worth mentioning and I have not attempted to cover the Spreadsheet or Presentation features of Google Docs.

Google's help pages are full of errors and I have endeavoured to correct those errors.

If you find this information helpful please consider saying thanks via my tip jar.

If you find any errors or omissions please contact me. You can also contact me if you'd like something added to this guide: I cannot promise to do so, but I'll do my best.

© Kiwi Polemicist 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from the author is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kiwi Polemicist with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Contents
  1. Introduction
    1. What is Google Docs and what can you do with it?
    2. Pros and cons of Google Docs
    3. What does it cost?
    4. Where do I sign up?
    5. The "Google Account" concept
    6. Getting from Docs to the My Account page
  2. The two main parts of Google Docs: Organiser View & Edit View (The Basics Part 1)
    1. 1) Organiser view
      1. Introduction to the Organiser View
      2. You need to know how to apply an action to a document in organiser view
    2. 2) Edit View
  3. Importing, Exporting, Storage Space (The Basics Part 2)
    1. Importing files
      1. What you can import and how big your imports can be
      2. How to import them
      3. Software that will upload your documents to Docs
    2. Exporting files
      1. Saving a document to your hard drive
      2. Previewing and editing your document outside Google Docs before saving it to your hard drive
      3. Exporting files via email
    3. Things are different for PDF files
    4. How much storage space do you get?
  4. The Organiser View: Selected Features (The Basics Part 3)
    1. Creating a new document
    2. Templates
    3. Sorting the documents list
    4. Searching for (and within) documents
    5. Creating and customising folders
    6. Creating/uncreating subfolders
    7. Putting your documents into folders
    8. Removing a document from a folder
    9. Starred folders
    10. Starred documents
    11. Hidden documents
  5. The Edit View: Selected Features (The Basics Part 4)
    1. Setting the page style and default page style
    2. Autosave
    3. Spell check
      1. A spell check option for Firefox users
    4. What do if the formatting goes crazy
    5. Footnotes
    6. Linking to your other documents
    7. Linking to an email address
    8. Looking up your words on the internet, in a dictionary, etc
    9. Bookmarks
    10. Adding a table of contents
    11. Comments
    12. Working in HTML and using Unicode
  6. Turning Your Document Into A Web Page Or A Blog Post
  7. Sharing Documents
    1. Introduction to Sharing
      1. 1) Owners
      2. 2) Collaborators
      3. 3) Viewers
    2. How to share one document or multiple documents
    3. Making a Contacts list so you can easily share documents with a group
    4. Using the Comments feature when sharing documents
    5. How sharing documents can help you and others
    6. A fun way of using the Share feature
  8. Working offline
      1. Read this if you have an unreliable internet connection.
  9. Synchronising files
  10. Shortcomings of Google Docs

Introduction

What is Google Docs and what can you do with it?


  • Google Docs (Docs henceforth) is a word processor that lives on the internet instead of living on your computer. Because all your work is on the internet you can access it from practically any computer that has fast internet access
  • Docs can edit documents that are currently on your computer (after you send them to Docs) or create new ones
  • Docs provides storage space for your documents
  • Documents in Docs can be printed, put up on the internet, put in a blog, downloaded to your computer, or emailed. You can even just let them sit there untouched.
  • Docs allows you to invite other people to view or edit your documents

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Pros and cons of Google Docs

Docs begs a question: do you want to move all your documents to Docs?

Docs has some advantages:

  • you can access and work on your information from practically any computer that has internet access
  • you're always working in the same way no matter what computer or operating system you're using
  • your documents can be in multiple folders
  • you can search the content of your documents
  • you can create links between documents
  • if your computer dies you can go to another computer and pick up where you left off
  • as can be seen in this guide, it is easy to email your documents and share them with other people. You can even use an email-capable cellphone to create a document
  • you have an offsite backup of your data, i.e. you won't lose it all if a Boeing 747 parks on your house
  • it is reasonable to assume that Google keeps copies of your information in more than one geographic location as this is standard practice in the industry
  • if you're away from home you can show your documents to someone else and discuss them wherever internet access is available. No more "I'll try and remember to email that file to you".

Naturally there's some disadvantages:

  • you're dependent on an internet connection and the speed of that connection
  • you're stuck with whatever features Google chooses to provide unless you move to another provider: changing providers is more complex and time consuming than installing a new piece of software on your computer
  • questions regarding privacy and security of data arise
  • there's always the possibility that Google will withdraw the service without giving you time to download your files. In my humble opinion this is extremely unlikely
  • you're dependent upon a computer system that you have no control over

Something else to consider:
Offsite backups are important if you value your data, but not many people are good at doing them. Working in Docs involves no more effort than working in software that lives on your computer and almost certainly means having your work stored in multiple locations, so you're gaining greater security of data without doing any extra work.

Of course, keeping an up to date copy of each Docs document on your computer involves extra work, but I'm not entirely convinced that it is necessary to do this. Downloading a copy of a document after each editing session is less hassle and easier to remember to do when compared to conventional offsite backups (more on that in Synchronising Files).


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What does it cost?

The price is a nice round number: 0.

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Where do I sign up?


Click here to sign up for Google Docs


The "Google Account" concept


Basically you open a Google Account - a painless process - and then proceed to add on whatever services (Docs, Gmail, etc) you desire. It's similar to going to one company for your land line, cellphone, and internet.

The are at least two significant advantages to the Google Account concept:

  • you log in once and then you have access to all your services
  • information can be shared between services, e.g. Docs is capable of utilising your Gmail contacts list.

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Getting from Docs to the My Account page

Docs doesn't have a direct link but two clicks will get you there:

  • In Organiser View click Web or Help at the top, it'll open a new tab and you'll see My Account at the top.
  • In Edit View click Help at the top, it'll open a new tab and you'll see My Account at the top.

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The two main parts of Google Docs: Organiser View & Edit View (The Basics Part 1)

1) Organiser view

Introduction to the Organiser View

Surprise, surprise, this is where you keep all your documents organised and basically do anything that doesn't involve actually editing a document. Think of it as the control centre cum filing cabinet.

Organiser View is the first thing you see after you log in: it has a list of your documents and a list of your folders.

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You need to know how to apply an action to a document in organiser view

To save a lot of typing (and reading) I'll say this now and won't repeat it with every instruction.

There's two main ways to do something with a document in Organiser View:

  1. Right click on a document name for a menu.
  2. Tick/check one or more of the boxes next to the document names, then right click or use the options in the blue bar at the top.

To open a document just single-click the file name and it'll open in a new tab.

If you want to get your browser's normal right click menu hold down Shift before clicking.

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2) Edit View

You guessed it, this is where you work on an individual document. From here you can also print a document, share, publish it to the web, and email it.

To get to Edit View create a new document or open an existing one.

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Importing, Exporting, Storage Space (The Basics Part 2)


Importing files

Importing is sending a document/file from your computer to Docs so that Docs can store it and add it to your list of documents. Once a document is imported you can edit it if it's not a PDF.
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What you can import and how big your imports can be


You can import these file types:

  • .html
  • plain text (.txt)
  • .doc (Microsoft Word)
  • .rtf
  • .odt (OpenOffice)
  • .sxw (StarOffice)
  • .pdf

Apart from pdf files, each document can have a maximum size of 500K, plus up to 2MB per embedded image. With pdfs you can store up to 10MB per PDF from your computer and 2MB from the web.

This is from the help page:

Please note that when importing files into Google Documents, the content will be converted into HTML. After conversion, the content can sometimes be larger (in some cases significantly larger), and the 500k limit applies to this post-conversion size. As a result, certain documents that are under 500k in their original format may still still be too large to upload.

Apart from PDFs, all file types can be edited. You can copy and paste from a PDF.

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How to import them


In the Organiser View click Upload to get four options:

1) upload a single file via the website and rename it if you wish

2) enter the URL/web address of a file located on the internet. E.g. if a website has a PDF that you want to send to Docs right click on the link then click Copy Shortcut or Copy Link. Then paste the link into the Docs upload options window.

3) send an email to the address provided on the Upload page and Docs will turn it into a document; the subject line will be the document name. This is an excellent feature if you're on a slow internet connection or if you have a mobile phone that can send emails.

4) Here's the theory: you can upload a maximum of 10 files at a time by attaching them to the email. Docs will convert each attachment to a document and the file names of the attachments will become the document titles. The text of the actual email will be ignored.

NB:
a) PDFs cannot be uploaded via email
b) You'll receive a confirmation email to let you know that your email has been uploaded correctly. What Google doesn't tell you that the confirmation email will go to your Gmail address*, not the the address that the email was sent from (what a daft idea). These confirmation emails contain the phrase "This document has been imported into Google Docs on your behalf" so you can set a Gmail filter to deal with them as you see fit.

*if you don't have a Gmail account you can go to My Account and add Gmail.

Here's the reality: the email upload feature is buggy. I tested it and if I sent more than one attachment per email all the attachments were ignored. Uploading a single attachment or an email without attachments was successful.

The email address supplied by Docs contains capitals and this might upset some email programs. If that happens just change the capitals to lower case.

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Software that will upload your documents to Docs


Sadly none of this software will upload PDFs because Docs will not allow it*.

1) For Windows try DocList Uploader which enables uploading of multiple files via drag-and-drop or the right click menu. Requires .NET Framework 2.0 or higher. I tried this and it worked well: it will work as a portable app, but I don't know if it's stealthy.

There is also a desktop gadget for Windows.

2) Mac people could try GDocsUploader

3) For Firefox there's an add-on called Open IT Online . With it you can right click on a link in a web page to send a document directly Docs, don't pass go, don't save it to your computer. If you want to save a PDF from a link on a web page see #2 in the previous section titled "How to import them".

4) An extension for OpenOffice is available.

5) For Penguin People there's a desktop gadget and an uploader to go with it (I am of course referring to Linux).

*for the geeks: PDFs aren't on the API Documents List

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Exporting files

Exporting is instructing Docs to send one of your documents to your computer so you can save it to your hard drive.

Saving a document to your hard drive


You can save a document to your computer as one of these files types:

  • HTML (zipped)
  • RTF
  • Word
  • Open Office
  • PDF
  • Text

In Organiser View use the usual methods, in Edit View click File>Download File As.


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Previewing and editing your document outside Google Docs before saving it to your hard drive

You can check what your document will look like in the software that lives on your computer and/or edit it before saving it to your hard drive.

  • in Edit View click File>Download File As and choose the Open With option in the popup box
  • in Organiser View use the usual methods to access Save As XXX and choose the Open With option in the popup box.

My experience is that the formatting/layout/appearance of a Docs document is faithfully reproduced in other software, provided of course that the software and the download format support all the fancy bits that you've added.

If you want some free software that will show all the fancy bits I recommend OpenOffice, which also works with Word (*.doc) files. There are compatibility issues with some whizz-bang features when using Microsoft formats in OpenOffice but if you're working at that level of complexity you'll be capable of finding the information on the OpenOffice site. Mere mortals need not worry about this.

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Exporting files via email

You can email the document either as an email body (i.e. the document becomes the actual email message) or as an attachment in one of these formats:

  • doc
  • odt
  • pdf
  • rtf

In Edit View click Share>Email As Attachment. I tested this feature and it worked well.


Things are different for PDF files

Here I am referring to PDFs that have been imported into Docs: this has nothing to do with exporting a Docs document as a PDF.
  • you can upload PDFs, then view, print, or share them, but not edit them
  • you can't upload them via email
  • to download a PDF you have to open it and click on the Download link
  • you cannot email PDFs from within Docs
  • you cannot publish PDFs to a web page or to a blog
  • you can only search the content of one PDF at a time
When viewing a PDF you can copy and paste from it, and freeware that will do that is hard to find. The Ctrl+A (select all) command won't work but you can zoom out and select multiple pages by clicking and dragging. Use Ctrl+C for the copy command.

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How much storage space do you get?

Google primarily looks at how many documents you have and allows a total of 5000 documents and presentations plus 5000 images. If you want more than that open another account.

Apart from pdf files, each document can have a maximum size of 500K, plus up to 2MB per embedded image. With pdfs you can store up to 10MB per PDF from your computer and 2MB from the web.

This is from the help page:

Please note that when importing files into Google Documents, the content will be converted into HTML. After conversion, the content can sometimes be larger (in some cases significantly larger), and the 500k limit applies to this post-conversion size. As a result, certain documents that are under 500k in their original format may still still be too large to upload.

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The Organiser View: Selected Features (The Basics Part 3)


Creating a new document

Click New>Document and a new tab will open in Edit View. Click Untitled at the top left to name the document.

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Templates

To create a new document based on a template click New>From Template. The templates are categorised and there's a search function.

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Sorting the documents list


Click on the column headers to sort the documents and click again to switch ascending/descending.

If you click on the left panel the documents will be sorted in the default manner, i.e. Today/Yesterday/Earlier This Week. This is a pain because you can't lock in your manual sort.

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Searching for (and within) documents

Here Docs has a major advantage because you can not only search for a document by title, but you can search within documents. Using the search box that's always visible will search both title and content of every document, or there's a button for options that will narrow the search.

You can also save your search when setting the search options and find it later in the left pane of the Organiser View. You cannot search the content of PDFs with this feature, but you can search the content of a PDF whilst viewing it.

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Creating and customising folders

You can have an unlimited number of folders: click New>Folder. Right click on a folder to rename it and give it a colour.

When you create a new folder it appears in the All Folders section of the left pane. You don't have control of the folders that are outside the All Folders section.

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Creating/uncreating subfolders

To create click on All Folders then drag the folder from the right pane to the desired destination. Or right click on the folder name and click Move To.

To make it a top level folder again drag the subfolder from the right pane to All Folders. Or right click on the folder name, then Move To>Remove from Current Folder.


Putting your documents into folders

A document can be in more than one folder at a time and a list of folders that each document is in can be seen in the right pane of Organiser View (they're in green).

Caution is required when moving documents between folders or adding them to multiple folders:

  • if you drag and drop a document (or use the Move To command) whilst viewing a document list that is part of the All Items section of the left pane everything is fine. You can add the document to as many folders if you like
  • if you drag and drop a document (or use the Move To command) whilst viewing a document list that is part of the All Folders section of the left pane then the document will be removed from one folder and added to another
Here's a way to save yourself some confusion:

  • to add a document to multiple folders first click in the All Items section of the left pane
  • to move a document from one folder to another first click in the All Folders section of the left pane
So what happens if a document already is already in more than one folder?

  • Starting from the All Items section will add another folder to the list of folders that the document is in
  • Starting from the All Folders section will remove the document from one folder and add it to another, i.e. one folder drops off the list of folders that that document is in and other is added.

This feature is a confusing mess and Google needs to sort it out. It's very difficult to describe such a nonsensical system so I hope that this makes sense.


Removing a document from a folder


  1. click on the relevant folder under All Folders
  2. tick or right click the relevant document
  3. use the Move To>Remove From Folder Command
or
  1. click on the relevant folder under All Folders
  2. click and drag the relevant document to All Items. You can also tick multiple items and drag them to All Items

NB: a document doesn't have to be in a folder. A document that isn't assigned to any folder will appear in All Items unless it's Hidden.
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Starred folders

Right click on a folder name to star it and have it appear in the Starred folder.


Starred documents


In the list of documents you'll see the outline of a star; click on it to make a document starred. When you click on the Starred folder you will only see the starred documents, this is handy for keeping track of documents that you're currently working on.


Hidden documents

This is a strange one. Hidden documents are only visible when you click on the Hidden folder or one of the folders under All Folders*. I regard this as an archiving feature, i.e. it's a way to avoid having old and dusty documents cluttering up the All Items list.

* obviously a document must first be assigned to a folder


The Edit View: Selected Features (The Basics Part 4)

Setting the page style and default page style


Click Edit>Edit Document Styles. You can set the font, line spacing, background colour, and reading direction.

Ticking/checking the default option will apply the settings to all new documents: if the default settings aren't suitable for a particular new document you can alter them for just that document by unticking the defaults option.

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Autosave

Docs automatically saves your documents at regular intervals so that if a meteorite hits your computer while you're working you'll only lose a little bit of work.


It's difficult to pin down how often these autosaves happen, but Google claims that it's several times a minute when using Spreadsheets.

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Spell check


Spell check is found under the Tools menu. Here's what to do:

  1. select your language
  2. click on Check Spelling (there's also an icon at the top left)
  3. scan your document and look for the words highlighted in yellow - they're the ones that Docs doesn't like. Click on them for a list of spelling options
  4. Click Done Spelling to remove the yellow markers
Firefox users should have a look at the next section...

A spell check option for Firefox users

Firefox can check your spelling as you type and underline any doubtful words.
  1. To enable this click Tools>Options>Advanced>Check My Spelling As I Type
  2. Right click in the window where you edit your document and click Check Spelling to turn the spell check on or off
  3. Right click in the window where you edit your document and click Languages to set the spell check language and/or add a dictionary
  4. When Firefox underlines a doubtful word use Shift+Right Click to see a list of suggested alternatives or add the word to your dictionary

What do if the formatting goes crazy

Formatting is altering the appearance or layout of a document.
I had a situation where I was trying to colour an underlined title and the text would take the colour but the underline stayed black. I selected the title and clicked Format>Clear Formatting and that fixed the problem. In other situations this solution was not successful and my only option was to edit the HTML that was mixed up.

If HTML isn't your thing and/or else fails copy and paste your document into a .txt editor (e.g. Notepad), then copy and paste your text into a new Docs document. You will lose all formatting if you do this; all you'll have is the bare words divided into sentences and paragraphs.

I think that this problem would have been avoided if I had typed the document entirely in black and made adding colours the last step. This problem is not unique to Google Docs and seems to be inherent in using a HTML-based system.

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Footnotes


Adding and controlling the little critters:

  1. To add a footnote put your cursor where you desire the footnote to be and click Insert>Footnote (sadly there's no keyboard shortcut). The footnote location is marked with a "#" which you can click and drag to a new location. 
  2. In Edit View the footnote appears in a box to the right of the relevant "#"
  3. Footnotes have fully automatic sequential numbering*
  4. If you can't see your footnotes click View and ensure that there's a check/tick beside Footnotes.  
  5. To edit the footnote click inside the box
  6. To collapse/shrink the footnote click on the bar at the top
  7. To delete the footnote click on the little triangle at the top right of the box, it will take a few seconds to disappear 

* i.e. they will be automatically numbered according to their order of appearance, and if you add a new footnote between two others the numbering will be automatically rearranged

Visibility of footnotes:

  • Whilst editing the footnotes will be visible on the right (see #4 above)
  • When you export a document in PDF format the footnotes will be true footnotes and visible at the end of each page
  • When you export in any other format the footnotes will become endnotes, i.e. appear at the end of the document
  • If you publish your document as a web page or send it as an email body your footnotes will become endnotes. Footnotes will be marked with a superscript number, e.g. the digit here » 1 . This digit is a link that readers click on to view the footnote, but sadly they don't get a Go Back link. The browser's Back button will work.


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Linking to your other documents

You can add a link - just like a normal web link - to your other documents. Click Link at the top right then Document.

These links won't work in documents intended for public consumption, although I think that they will work if they're in a shared document and the link points to another shared document that the viewers and collaborators have access to. I haven't had the opportunity to test this.

Linking to an email address

Click Link at the top right then Email Address. When someone clicks on this it will open their email program, although not everyone likes this type of link (a contact page is generally better).

Looking up your words on the internet, in a dictionary, etc


  • double click a word to select it
  • click Tools>Look Up Word for the (American) Merriam-Webster dictionary and thesaurus, or the Encyclopedia Brittanica entry for that word
  • Click Tools>Search The Web For Word to do a standard Google word or image search

Bookmarks

This is confusing at first: you put your cursor in the right place, then click Insert>Bookmark and give your bookmark a name, but apparently nothing happens. What's happened is that your bookmark is there but it's invisible because a bookmark is only a destination point for a link (just as web page B is the destination point for a link on web page A). If you want a visible bookmark your only option is to add a comment.

To go to a bookmark you need a link, so put your cursor where you want the link to be and click Insert>Link>Bookmark.

To remove individual bookmarks click Insert>Bookmark or Tools>Manage Document Bookmarks.

You might want to have all your links in one place, in the manner of an index.

Adding a table of contents

Docs can semi-automatically create a table of contents (ToC) with up to three levels, as seen at the top of this document:
  1. put your cursor where you want your table of contents to be then click Insert>Table Of Contents. Do not manually edit this table at any time
  2. at the top left of the editing window is a drop down menu labelled Styles; use this to tell Docs which words you wish to have appear in the ToC.
  3. a word that is made Heading 1* will the top level of the ToC, words that are made Heading 2 will be the second level in the ToC, and words made Heading 3 will be the third level in the ToC, i.e.
    4.                                       Heading 1
                                            Heading 2
                                              Heading 3
  4. if you wish to alter the ToC alter the words that are Heading 1/2/3, not the actual ToC, then...
  5. click inside the box that surrounds the ToC then click Update Now to see your changes
  6. click inside the box that surrounds the ToC then click Properties to see the labelling/numbering options for the ToC
  7. you must update the ToC before publishing your document, there's no automatic update
  8. you can click on the ToC whilst editing to jump to a heading inside your document

I tested the ToC in OpenOffice using OpenOffice and Word formats. I also tested it in PDF format with Foxit Reader: in all cases the ToC worked well.

* place your cursor at the beginning of a line then use the Styles menu, or click and drag to select the words of your heading and use the Styles menu

Comments

Click Insert>Comment* to have your comment appear in a coloured box. Click on the box for a menu; you can insert the comment text into the document if you wish. This is a good way to post a note to yourself during the editing process, e.g. "This paragraph barks like a dog". There's a choice of 6 box colours so if you're really organised you can have six different types of comments.

Comments can be used as bookmarks in the traditional sense (not in the Google sense, which is explained here), i.e. to visibly mark a place in a document. If each bookmark/comment contains the word "bookmark" you can use the search feature to find them. Click Edit>Find and Replace or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + F (Cmd +F for Mac).

When you publish your document as a web page, post it to your blog, or print it, the comments will disappear.

*the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + M (Cmd + M for Mac)

  

Working in HTML and using Unicode

If you don't know what HTML and Unicode are and/or those things sound like dangerous animals to you just ignore this bit.

HTML is the native language of Docs and HTML heaven (hell?) can be found by clicking Edit>Edit HTML. In Firefox Ctrl+F searches the HTML.

Docs only offers 64 colour choices for text and text background, but with HTML you can edit the RGB values and choose between 16,777,216 colours. This is enough to keep most people happy.

To add Unicode characters click Insert>Insert Special Characters>Advanced.
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Turning Your Document Into A Web Page Or A Blog Post

You can turn your document into a web page that anyone can view:
  • In Edit View Click Share>Publish As Web Page and an options box will pop up
  • In Organiser View right click on a document name then click Publish, or tick/check a document then Click More Actions>Publish and an options box will pop up

There's an option to have the web page automatically updated when you alter the document and the URL/web address is given. As far as I can tell this is the only place in which you can view the URL of your document.

When you turn a document into a web page that web page cannot be seen by search engines so the web page is private unless you give away the URL or put the URL on another web page. It is possible that someone may guess the address of your web page: I've never heard of that happening, but just remember that your web page isn't a locked room.

This page that you are reading was written in Docs and published as a web page: have a look at the address bar of your browser.

You can send your document to your blog:
  • In Edit View Click Share>Publish As Web Page and an options box will pop up
  • In Organiser View right click on a document name then click Publish, or tick/check a document then Click More Actions>Publish and an options box will pop up

This is another buggy feature. I tested this with WordPress.com (a blog hosted on WordPress). My account has multiple blogs and I couldn't control which blog the document went to. I then opened a new WordPress account with only one blog and the feature didn't work at all.

A workaround. Starting in Edit View I tried to copy and paste a document into my WordPress.com blog. This worked well and the formatting was preserved, but three features won't work in this situation:
  • Table of contents
  • Bookmarks
  • Links to other documents

There is also the option of publishing your document as a web page and putting a link on your blog; this removes any compatibility issues.

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Sharing Documents

This is a stunning feature.

Introduction to Sharing


You can allow people to view or edit a specific document, up to a total of 200 people per document. You can have 10 of those people simultaneously editing a document. There are three types of people involved: owners, collaborators, and viewers...

1) Owners

  • Can edit documents and invite more collaborators and viewers.
  • Can delete documents, spreadsheets and presentations, and thereby remove access for collaborators and viewers. Please note: To fully delete a document, spreadsheet or presentation, and remove access to it, you must delete it and then Empty Trash.
  • In Organiser View you can change the ownership of a document via the usual command methods.

2) Collaborators

  • Can edit documents and add Comments.
  • Can invite or delete other collaborators and viewers (if the owner has given them permission to do so).
  • Can save a copy of the document to their local hard drive.

3) Viewers

  • Can see the most recent version of a document and its Comments but can't make any changes.
  • Can save a copy of the document to their local hard drive.


How to share one document or multiple documents

  • To share a single document use the usual command methods in Organiser View, or in Edit View look for the blue button at the top right.
  • To share multiple documents tick/check them in Organiser View then right click or click Share


Making a Contacts list so you can easily share documents with a group


Use the Gmail Contacts feature to create a mailing list. When you come to share your document(s) the popup box has a Choose From Contacts button which gives access to your Gmail contacts.

Gmail Contacts will import CSV files. The import dialogue tells you what to do if you're using Apple Address Book.

If you don't have Gmail go to the My Account page to add it.

Using the Comments feature when sharing documents


Collaborators and viewers can see comments, whilst collaborators can also add and edit them, so this is a easy method of communication.

When you add a comment the author's name and a date stamp are automatically included. Comments can be in one of six colours so assigning a colour to each collaborator would be useful. If you've got a crowd of collaborators you could assign a colour to regions, countries, offices, etc.

How sharing documents can help you and others

1) if you want someone to critique your work you can Share a document with them and they can add Comments


2) Note that Viewers can download files but not edit them, so this feature can be used as a way to distribute documents to people and has at least four major advantages over emailing a document:


  1. people can view the document online and avoid cluttering up their computers
  2. if they do want to download the file they can do so in their preferred format
  3. the problem of emails with attachments being rejected by virus scanners is avoided
  4. people with slow internet connections don't have to deal with a large attachment and can view the document when it is is convenient to do so
    5.

3) This is from the help page:
Google Docs enables multiple users in different locations to collaborate simultaneously on the same project. This is what is meant by "collaboration." For example, when Alice in New York enters something into her document, spreadsheet or presentation, Meredith in Los Angeles can see the changes in real time and respond to them immediately. Instead of having to compare and consolidate their individual files, both women edit a single document. Plus, editing is possible from [almost] any computer with [fast] Internet access.
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A fun way of using the Share feature


Have an online debate: if you've got six or fewer debaters each one can have a comment colour.

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Working offline

Read this if you have an unreliable internet connection.


You can continue to use Docs when you're not connected to the internet:
  • you can view and edit existing documents
  • you can't create new documents, but you can create a stash of blank documents before going offline
  • if your internet connection suddenly fails you can continue working offline, and everything up to the last autosave before the disconnection will be there*
  • when you go back online your documents will be synchronised automatically if you are using the same computer and the same browser
  • Do not use this feature on a public or shared computer.
Here's what to do:
  1. to enable the offline feature click Offline at the top right in Organiser View. Docs will walk you through the process and it's straightforward, but if you want to know more click here .
  2. in their typical fashion, Google doesn't actually tell you how to go offline. Basically Docs continually saves your data to your hard drive, so you are ready to go offline at any time. This means that, for example, you can just turn off your laptop and walk away knowing that you are ready to work offline.
  3. accessing Docs when offline: when you enable the offline feature you'll be given the option of creating a desktop shortcut or adding Docs to the Start>Programs menu. If you have any trouble with those open your browser and type http://docs.google.com into the address bar. I'd suggest bookmarking this.
  4. to disable the offline feature go to Organiser View and click on the little symbol to the right of your user name - it's appearance varies.
Additional notes:
  1. if you've edited a shared document whilst offline and your edits conflict with another person's Docs will display a message and show you the differences so that you can edit them
  2. for those of you using a browser that's a portable app: your data is synchronised to a folder that is within your browser folder so, whilst I haven't tested this, it looks like the offline feature will work with a portable browser
    3.

*I tested this by physically disconnecting my computer from the internet whilst I was working in Docs and it worked as advertised. The autosave period appears to be one minute or less.

Synchronising files

Apart from the aforementioned offline feature Docs doesn't have a way of synchronising its documents with versions of the same documents that are on your computer: Google's idea is that you will move everything to Docs. I can see a few options here:


  1. go the Google way and move all your documents to the cloud (online) so that you have none on your computer. This means putting all your eggs in Google's basket, which leads me to ask how strong Google's basket is. The short answer is that no one knows, but Google is a company worth billions and data is their stock in trade, so they have a vested interest in making the basket strong
  2. when you have finished editing in Docs export the document and overwrite the copy that is currently on your computer. This method requires discipline and organisation
  3. when you have finished editing in Docs email the document to yourself (not to your Gmail address, obviously!). I use Thunderbird and it has filters which will park your emails in a folder of your choice
  4. if you're a survivalist email each document to the email programme that's living on your hard drive and send a copy of the email to an email programme that a portable app living on a flash drive
I'd suggest that you designate one system to be the one that always has the master versions, e.g. decide that Docs will contain the master versions, those which are the most up to date and take precedence over those on your computer.

Shortcomings of Google Docs


When reading this list bear in mind that you are getting a free service.
  • if you don't have additional software you can only upload one file at a time via the website, or ten at a time via email (ten in theory, one in reality)
  • if you want to do multiple downloads the only format option is zipped HTML
  • the choice of fonts is very limited
  • the choice of text colours is very limited and there's no custom colour option*
  • the choice of page background colours is very limited and there's no custom colour option*
  • you can't edit PDFs (as far as I know no freeware will do this)
  • web links can't be added to images
  • their is no support from Google: all you get is the help pages (which contain numerous errors) and a forum

*unless you access the HTML and edit the RGB values