Agree or not, but ever since we started using Google Docs, MS Office seems like a thing of past. And why not! It offers a bunch of useful features that makes accomplishing our tasks at a much faster speed. From offline access to cloud storage–it’s still an easy-to-use office suite which we can use anytime anywhere!
Google Docs not just offers us the basic MS Office functionality; it offers some pretty useful features as well that you might not yet have stumbled across yet.
So here are the 10 coolest tips and tricks which can make using Google Docs much handier.
- Offline Access
Did you know Google Docs offers offline access as well? You can easily create new documents, edit current, and even just view your documents while you don’t have an Internet connection. To set this up, open the Google Drive website, click on the gear button at the top-right corner of the site, and click Settings. On the General pane, enable “Sync your work to this computer so that you can edit offline” and click Done. Ta-Da!
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- Suggest Edits
This is one great option to use specially if you’re collaborating in a team. You get to make a note of suggested edits, which the author can then accept or reject as they please. To do this just click the pencil icon at the top-right corner then click “Suggesting.” From now on any edit you make in this mode will be shown as a comment to the right of the document. Other people (or you) can then reply to the suggestion, leave feedback on it, or use the tick or cross icons whether you want to accept or reject the suggestion.
- Insert Images
Google Docs has a great solution for this using its handy “Explore” feature. Simply highlight the word or phrase in your document that you want to find an image for, then click “Tools -> Explore.”
This will open a pane to the right of your document bringing up a whole bunch of information from the Web relating to your highlighted text
- Add Words to Dictionary
Tired of seeing those annoying redlines underneath your favorite word phrases? If yes then Click on Tools and then select Personal dictionary so that Google Docs can ignore it in the future.
- Real Time Collaboration
Working in team is quite fun, right? Google Doc’s Share feature allow you to share a document with a one or more people so they can view and edit it accordingly. Click on File > Share to start sharing the document. You can also invite individual people by entering their email address and provide them the authority to edit your document.
- Tag Someone in a Comment
Adding comments is all in all great but how can you be sure someone else has seen them? If you type the plus (“+”) symbol in a comment, followed by an email address, that person gets an alert telling them they’ve been tagged.
See Also: Things You Can Do To Use Google Drive Better
- Add Bookmarks
Google Docs allows you to add bookmarks, so you can easily find your way around big files. All you need to do is tap on Insert menu then select the Bookmark option to place one and get the link to it. Use Insert and Link to link to your bookmarks.
- Publish a Document
Google Docs enables you to rapidly distribute a report on the web. Simply tap on File > Publish to the web and tap the Start Publishing Button. You’ll get a public link to the report so that you can instantly share it to other individuals as well. Cool isn’t? Now you won’t need to host the document on servers.
- Web Clipboard
To use this feature, select some text, click Edit, use the Web Clipboard menu. In this way, you can copy some types of data, such as drawings, between different types of Google documents.
- Install Add-ons
Add-ons are a great way to include third-party bits of software in your document. You can quickly install them by clicking Tools > Manage Add-ons. They can then be easily accessed from the Add-ons menu.
So here were the 10 essential Google Docs tips and tweak which can make your life easier. Google Docs keep on improving and has proved that it can do some things that even the great Word can’t! So, if you happen to know any other hack which might interest our users, then feel free to drop us a comment.