New season new ways to get work done with Google Docs

Posted by Jude Flannery, Engineering Director

Fall brings a new sense of energy and excitement as teammates get back to work after soaking up the summer sun and the kids return to school. To help you be more productive than ever this season, Google Docs is getting a whole new set of tools.

For 9 years our core focus has been on making collaboration as simple as possible, even if your team is spread out all over the world. So far this year, we’ve made more than 100 different improvements to the Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms apps that help ease the content creation process. Now we’re taking the first steps to incorporate the power and intelligence of Google into Docs. We hope to make analyzing your data more intuitive, editing more accessible and document styling more dynamic – now your documents can be as beautiful as your ideas are bold.

Bringing the power of Google to your Docs

Whether you’re an agency researching creative ideas for a client pitch or a bakery brainstorming names for your newest dessert, pulling the wealth of information from Google search into your docs can transform them from interesting to inspiring. With the new Research feature in the Docs Android app, you’ll notice there’s less than half the steps previously needed to pull quotes, facts and images from Google search into your – in fact you’ll never even have to leave the app.



Voice typing has helped change the way we work on the go (when it’s easier to talk than type). We’re now bringing that innovation to the web, where improvements to voice transcription make even long-form dictation, like sharing your brainstorming ideas with teammates around the world, a breeze. In fact, it even supports more than 40 different languages, so it’s also handy for practicing your language skills. To start, just turn on voice typing from the tools menu in Google Chrome.

Whether it’s the data from your newly created Forms (more on that later) or one of your existing documents, the new Explore feature in Google Sheets will help you make sense of it all. It’s a tool designed to help you visualize, summarize and interpret your data – no more stressing or wasting countless hours stewing over endless rows of data. Simply select some data, open the Explore panel (available on the web and Android) and you’ll instantly see a selection of charts and text-based insights that help bring meaning to your numbers.

Documents that work for you

Google Forms makes it easy to quickly get information from teammates, customers and partners. And it’s getting a refresh, with new themes and the option to add your own photo or logo. You can choose from a wide selection of question types and even add images and gifs to your forms.

It can sometimes be a little overwhelming trying to make your docs look great. You’ll now notice a new arsenal of templates in the Docs, Sheets and Slides homescreens to make your work really stand out. Whether you’re creating a project plan for the team’s next big product launch or a simple budget spreadsheet to manage office finances for the next quarter, you’ll find a template for every scenario.

Finally, to make it easier to keep up with the latest updates when collaborating on a Doc with your team, there’s a “see new changes” option. It’ll show you all the changes made by your team, so you can check out what the Tokyo office was up to while you were sleeping. 

Want to learn more about each of these new features that are rolling out this season? Keep tabs on our Google+ and Twitter channels to see more tips, tricks and features.

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