Google Apps News
Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog and the Google Small Business Blog
As customers begin to recognize large productivity gains with Gmail, Google Docs and the rest of Google Apps, they frequently ask when they’ll be able to use services like Google Voice, Reader, Blogger and AdWords with their Google Apps accounts. We’ve steadily added new functionality to Google Apps and recently added support for third-party apps, but we’re thrilled to swing the floodgates of new functionality wide open now. Starting today, customers worldwide can access a full spectrum of services from Google—including more than 60 productivity-boosting applications that extend far beyond any traditional software suite.
Coupled with the ability for administrators to provide different sets of applications to different groups of users, the possibilities for empowering workers in new ways are remarkable. For example, you could equip your marketing team with Picasa Web Albums so they can collect and share photos from customer appreciation events, and let that team publish your company’s blog with Blogger. Services like iGoogle and Alerts, on the other hand, may be broadly useful, and could be enabled for your whole organization.
Existing customers can transition at their own pace over the next couple months to the new infrastructure supporting these applications from the administrative control panel. New customers will automatically have the new infrastructure. The additional services are not covered by the Google Apps SLA or telephone support, but we’ll be watching for feedback how we can make these new applications even more useful.
In tandem with this big improvement, we’re also simplifying the names of the versions of Google Apps. Here’s how we now refer to our line-up:
As customers begin to recognize large productivity gains with Gmail, Google Docs and the rest of Google Apps, they frequently ask when they’ll be able to use services like Google Voice, Reader, Blogger and AdWords with their Google Apps accounts. We’ve steadily added new functionality to Google Apps and recently added support for third-party apps, but we’re thrilled to swing the floodgates of new functionality wide open now. Starting today, customers worldwide can access a full spectrum of services from Google—including more than 60 productivity-boosting applications that extend far beyond any traditional software suite.
Coupled with the ability for administrators to provide different sets of applications to different groups of users, the possibilities for empowering workers in new ways are remarkable. For example, you could equip your marketing team with Picasa Web Albums so they can collect and share photos from customer appreciation events, and let that team publish your company’s blog with Blogger. Services like iGoogle and Alerts, on the other hand, may be broadly useful, and could be enabled for your whole organization.
Existing customers can transition at their own pace over the next couple months to the new infrastructure supporting these applications from the administrative control panel. New customers will automatically have the new infrastructure. The additional services are not covered by the Google Apps SLA or telephone support, but we’ll be watching for feedback how we can make these new applications even more useful.
In tandem with this big improvement, we’re also simplifying the names of the versions of Google Apps. Here’s how we now refer to our line-up:
- Google Apps is our free service geared towards families, entrepreneurs and other groups up to 50 users.
- Google Apps for Business offers 25GB of email storage per user, a 99.9% uptime guarantee, data migration capabilities, advanced management tools, telephone support, added security features and more, all for $50 per user per year.
- Google Apps for Government is FISMA certified and designed with local, state and federal agencies in mind.
- Google Apps for Education offers many benefits of Google Apps for Business, but at no cost to schools, universities and qualifying non-profits.
Cross posted on the Official Google Blog, Google Enterprise Blog and the Google Mobile Blog
With Google Docs, we’re always trying to make you more productive—and part of that means making it possible for you to get things done from anywhere, at anytime. That’s why we’re excited that the new documents editor now supports editing on your mobile browser. We’re rolling this out over the next few days.
That means that...
It’s easy to get started: visit docs.google.com in a browser on a supported device, and select the document you want to edit. Then, when you’re viewing it, press the Edit button to switch to the mobile editor.
In the next few days, we’re rolling this out to English-language users around the world on Android with Froyo (version 2.2) and on iOS devices (version 3.0+) including the iPad. We’ll be adding support for other languages soon. And as before, we also support editing of spreadsheets from your mobile device’s browser.
We hope you enjoy editing your documents on the go—especially when you’re at the game with a hot dog in your other hand.
Posted by: Andrew Grieve, Software Engineer
With Google Docs, we’re always trying to make you more productive—and part of that means making it possible for you to get things done from anywhere, at anytime. That’s why we’re excited that the new documents editor now supports editing on your mobile browser. We’re rolling this out over the next few days.
That means that...
- You can work on that important memo...while on the bus or train to work.
- If you’re behind on a group proposal, but really want to make it to the ball game tonight, your whole team can work on it from the bleacher seats.
- You can take minute-by-minute notes at a concert so you’ll always remember the setlist. And your friends can jealously follow in real-time at home.
- ...and the list goes on!
It’s easy to get started: visit docs.google.com in a browser on a supported device, and select the document you want to edit. Then, when you’re viewing it, press the Edit button to switch to the mobile editor.
In the next few days, we’re rolling this out to English-language users around the world on Android with Froyo (version 2.2) and on iOS devices (version 3.0+) including the iPad. We’ll be adding support for other languages soon. And as before, we also support editing of spreadsheets from your mobile device’s browser.
We hope you enjoy editing your documents on the go—especially when you’re at the game with a hot dog in your other hand.
Posted by: Andrew Grieve, Software Engineer
With Google Docs we try to make writing a document as easy and as fast as possible. Yesterday, we added two new auto-correction features to speed up your document writing.
LaTeX shortcuts in equations
Until now, the only way to enter an equation in documents was to create the equation from the Insert menu, and then use the equation toolbar to choose your symbols.
The toolbar makes it easy to discover which types of equations are possible.
Today we’re making it a little easier for users to quickly type equations using LaTeX equation shortcuts. For anyone who heard of LaTeX before, it’s a document markup language that’s often used by academics to quickly type out complex formulas. In Google Docs, when you’re inside an equation you can type '\sqrt' followed by a space or a parenthesis to automatically convert the text into a square root sign √. Other examples of useful shortcuts are '\frac' for a fraction and shorthands like '\epsilon' for Greek symbols.
If you want to quickly enter a superscript or a subscript while inside an equation, you can do that with '^' and '_'respectively. Here’s a full list of the automatic equation shortcuts supported in Google Docs.
Text replacements
We also added the ability to substitute text automatically. For example, you can type '(c)' followed by a space to have it automatically converted into a copyright sign ©, or '2/3' and a space to have it automatically converted into the fraction symbol: ⅔.
This feature is especially useful if there are spelling mistakes that you notice yourself making over and over again. You can right click on a misspelled word, go down to the AutoCorrect option, and choose a way of automatically fixing this spelling mistake in the future.
If you don’t want text replacements, you can disable them from the Tools > Preferences dialog. From that dialog, you’ll also be able to manage your text replacements by adding and removing items from the list.
Finally, if a document ever makes an auto-correction that you don’t want, you can press Ctrl Z (Cmd Z on a Mac) to undo it.
We hope that these new features will help make you a speedier writer in Google Docs.
Posted by: Evgeniy Stepanov, Software Engineer
LaTeX shortcuts in equations
Until now, the only way to enter an equation in documents was to create the equation from the Insert menu, and then use the equation toolbar to choose your symbols.
The toolbar makes it easy to discover which types of equations are possible.Today we’re making it a little easier for users to quickly type equations using LaTeX equation shortcuts. For anyone who heard of LaTeX before, it’s a document markup language that’s often used by academics to quickly type out complex formulas. In Google Docs, when you’re inside an equation you can type '\sqrt' followed by a space or a parenthesis to automatically convert the text into a square root sign √. Other examples of useful shortcuts are '\frac' for a fraction and shorthands like '\epsilon' for Greek symbols.
If you want to quickly enter a superscript or a subscript while inside an equation, you can do that with '^' and '_'respectively. Here’s a full list of the automatic equation shortcuts supported in Google Docs.
Text replacements
We also added the ability to substitute text automatically. For example, you can type '(c)' followed by a space to have it automatically converted into a copyright sign ©, or '2/3' and a space to have it automatically converted into the fraction symbol: ⅔.
This feature is especially useful if there are spelling mistakes that you notice yourself making over and over again. You can right click on a misspelled word, go down to the AutoCorrect option, and choose a way of automatically fixing this spelling mistake in the future.
If you don’t want text replacements, you can disable them from the Tools > Preferences dialog. From that dialog, you’ll also be able to manage your text replacements by adding and removing items from the list.
Finally, if a document ever makes an auto-correction that you don’t want, you can press Ctrl Z (Cmd Z on a Mac) to undo it.We hope that these new features will help make you a speedier writer in Google Docs.
Posted by: Evgeniy Stepanov, Software Engineer
If you’re looking for more ways to speed up your typing or have been craving images in your spreadsheets, we have something for you this week. Auto-corrections and LaTeX shortcuts to equations speed up typing and reduce editing while images to cells make it easy to add color to your spreadsheets. These features are rolling out over the next couple of days.
We’ll be blogging about each feature in detail, but in the meantime here’s the quick digest version:
Auto-corrections
We’ve added a feature to substitute text automatically. For example, you can type '(c)' followed by a space to have it automatically converted into a copyright sign ©. You can also create your own custom auto-corrects.
LaTex in equations
If you’re familiar with LaTex, you’ll enjoy the many LaTeX shortcuts we added to the equation editor. For example, while editing an equation you can type '\frac' followed by a space and it will automatically be converted into an equation fraction.
Add images to cells
You can now add images to individual spreadsheet cells and choose from a variety of sizing options including size to fit, stretch, original size, and custom.
We’ve also got another feature ready to go for tomorrow so stay tuned.
Posted by: Lindsay Hall, Software Engineering Intern
We’ll be blogging about each feature in detail, but in the meantime here’s the quick digest version:
Auto-corrections
We’ve added a feature to substitute text automatically. For example, you can type '(c)' followed by a space to have it automatically converted into a copyright sign ©. You can also create your own custom auto-corrects.
LaTex in equations
If you’re familiar with LaTex, you’ll enjoy the many LaTeX shortcuts we added to the equation editor. For example, while editing an equation you can type '\frac' followed by a space and it will automatically be converted into an equation fraction.
Add images to cells
You can now add images to individual spreadsheet cells and choose from a variety of sizing options including size to fit, stretch, original size, and custom.
We’ve also got another feature ready to go for tomorrow so stay tuned.
Posted by: Lindsay Hall, Software Engineering Intern
Posted by Jason Toff, Product Marketing Manager
If you visited the Gmail log-in page recently, you may have noticed that things looked a wee bit different. We decided to give this page a bit of a facelift and updated a few of Gmail’s other pages while we were at it. Our goal was to keep a familiar look while freshening up the graphics and trimming down the text (we cut out over 250 words in the process).
Here’s a before & after of the log-in page:
We also updated the Gmail logo, brightening the colors and making it more in line with the latest Google logo:
If you visited the Gmail log-in page recently, you may have noticed that things looked a wee bit different. We decided to give this page a bit of a facelift and updated a few of Gmail’s other pages while we were at it. Our goal was to keep a familiar look while freshening up the graphics and trimming down the text (we cut out over 250 words in the process).
Here’s a before & after of the log-in page:
We also updated the Gmail logo, brightening the colors and making it more in line with the latest Google logo:
About a year ago, I started scanning and uploading all the important papers floating around my house into Google Docs. It seemed like an obvious solution to three things that drove me crazy:
Folders and sub-folders
What: With the Create New button in the upper left, you can create folders to organize your content. Click on your newly created folder on the left hand side of your document list. While you’re there, you can click Create New again to make a sub-folder within the first folder.
Tip: To minimize how many folders I see on the left hand side, I create general folder titles like Bills and Photos. I then use sub-folders for clearer classification like Electricity and Cell Phone under my ‘Bills’ folder. When I’m uploading a scanned document I’m able select the appropriate sub-folder right away.
Shared folders
What: Once you’ve created a folder, you can keep it for yourself, or share it with anyone. Right click on a folder, select Share, and choose the sharing option that best fits your need.
Tip: My husband and I compiled all of our immigration paperwork into one folder. Recently my brother took the plunge and also had to work his way through this process. By sharing my folder with him, it made it easier for him to see what was needed and simplified the process a bit (at least that’s what he told me...).
Managing document versions
What: Click on any file and select ‘Add or manage versions’ in order to upload and group different versions of the same document together.
Tip: While this is an ideal tool for a designer that wants to keep iterations of the same graphic in one place, I found my own everyday use for this feature. I keep track of items where the most recent has more importance than past ones. For example, I scan my taxes, and upload the oldest ones first so the newest one is visible, but I have the option to download past copies.
Exporting your files
What: Someone you know doesn’t live in the cloud? Gasp! No worries, I can easily export all the files in a folder. Just right-click the folder, choose Export, and click the Download button.
Tip: Taking this action will save a .zip file to my computer’s hard drive that I can then email to anyone who’s not as tech-savvy (though, I might have to unzip the file for them too!).
If you’re in the mood to give your filing cabinet the boot, chime in here with your own tips for moving your files to the cloud.
Posted by: Rebecca Steelman, Consumer Operations
- Clutter (I believe papers not only accumulate but secretly multiply)
- Access (I always need that bill/file that is at home and not at the office with me)
- Sharing (It’s a common occurrence that I need someone else to also look at that file, and that person is hardly ever with me at the office either.)
Folders and sub-folders
What: With the Create New button in the upper left, you can create folders to organize your content. Click on your newly created folder on the left hand side of your document list. While you’re there, you can click Create New again to make a sub-folder within the first folder.
Tip: To minimize how many folders I see on the left hand side, I create general folder titles like Bills and Photos. I then use sub-folders for clearer classification like Electricity and Cell Phone under my ‘Bills’ folder. When I’m uploading a scanned document I’m able select the appropriate sub-folder right away.
Shared folders
What: Once you’ve created a folder, you can keep it for yourself, or share it with anyone. Right click on a folder, select Share, and choose the sharing option that best fits your need.
Tip: My husband and I compiled all of our immigration paperwork into one folder. Recently my brother took the plunge and also had to work his way through this process. By sharing my folder with him, it made it easier for him to see what was needed and simplified the process a bit (at least that’s what he told me...).
Managing document versions
What: Click on any file and select ‘Add or manage versions’ in order to upload and group different versions of the same document together.
Tip: While this is an ideal tool for a designer that wants to keep iterations of the same graphic in one place, I found my own everyday use for this feature. I keep track of items where the most recent has more importance than past ones. For example, I scan my taxes, and upload the oldest ones first so the newest one is visible, but I have the option to download past copies.
Exporting your files
What: Someone you know doesn’t live in the cloud? Gasp! No worries, I can easily export all the files in a folder. Just right-click the folder, choose Export, and click the Download button.
Tip: Taking this action will save a .zip file to my computer’s hard drive that I can then email to anyone who’s not as tech-savvy (though, I might have to unzip the file for them too!).
If you’re in the mood to give your filing cabinet the boot, chime in here with your own tips for moving your files to the cloud.
Posted by: Rebecca Steelman, Consumer Operations
Recently, we launched a rebuilt document editor from the ground up. Just like some colors stand out more than others, there are some features in the new editor that are particularly shiny. While features like real-time collaboration, more fonts, and an advanced revision history tool are like neon green, crimson red, and ultramarine, the ruler tends to be viewed more like a beige.
But the ruler, like beige, can certainly have its charms. You can use the ruler to position your text anywhere on the page. And that makes it a powerful tool.
There are a number of blue shapes on the ruler -- these affect the positioning of each paragraph, and are either indents or tab stops.
All paragraphs have three indents: the first line indent
,the left indent
, and the right indent
.
Dragging the first line indent adjusts the left padding of the first line of a paragraph, while the left indent adjusts all subsequent lines of a paragraph. If you drag the left indent along the ruler, the first line indent will follow it. The right indent adjusts how far a paragraph extends toward the right side of the page.
Tab stops
Sometimes you need to control the display of your text with more granularity than what you can accomplish with just indents. That’s where tab stops come in handy.
With tab stops, you can align text relative to a specific spot on the ruler. So that means that a left tab stop
will left align text to a position on the ruler, a right tab stop
will right align text to a spot on the ruler, while a center tab stop
will center-align the text.
To move between tab stops, you can press the tab key, and subsequent text will align with the tab stop. You can add multiple tab stops by clicking on a spot on the ruler and selecting the appropriate tab stop.
You can move the position of a tab stop by dragging it around the ruler. And to remove a tab stop, simply drag it off the ruler.
Margins
Tab stops and indents are great for adjusting individual paragraphs, but sometimes you want to change alignment for an entire document. For that, you can use margins.
You can adjust the left and right margins by dragging the gray space on either side of the ruler.
You can also adjust the left and right margins, as well as the top and bottom margins of your document from File -> Page setup.
Once you get going, like with beige, it’s a bit surprising all of the things you can do with the trusty ruler.
Posted by: Luiz Pereira, Software Engineer
But the ruler, like beige, can certainly have its charms. You can use the ruler to position your text anywhere on the page. And that makes it a powerful tool.
There are a number of blue shapes on the ruler -- these affect the positioning of each paragraph, and are either indents or tab stops.
All paragraphs have three indents: the first line indent
,the left indent, and the right indent.Dragging the first line indent adjusts the left padding of the first line of a paragraph, while the left indent adjusts all subsequent lines of a paragraph. If you drag the left indent along the ruler, the first line indent will follow it. The right indent adjusts how far a paragraph extends toward the right side of the page.
Tab stops
Sometimes you need to control the display of your text with more granularity than what you can accomplish with just indents. That’s where tab stops come in handy.
With tab stops, you can align text relative to a specific spot on the ruler. So that means that a left tab stop
will left align text to a position on the ruler, a right tab stop will right align text to a spot on the ruler, while a center tab stop will center-align the text.To move between tab stops, you can press the tab key, and subsequent text will align with the tab stop. You can add multiple tab stops by clicking on a spot on the ruler and selecting the appropriate tab stop.
You can move the position of a tab stop by dragging it around the ruler. And to remove a tab stop, simply drag it off the ruler.Margins
Tab stops and indents are great for adjusting individual paragraphs, but sometimes you want to change alignment for an entire document. For that, you can use margins.
You can adjust the left and right margins by dragging the gray space on either side of the ruler.
You can also adjust the left and right margins, as well as the top and bottom margins of your document from File -> Page setup.
Once you get going, like with beige, it’s a bit surprising all of the things you can do with the trusty ruler.
Posted by: Luiz Pereira, Software Engineer
Posted by Manu Cornet, Software Engineer
Manu: Hey, how would you fancy some new Gmail themes?
Jake: Sure, I would love that! How usable are they?
Manu: Huh, usable? Well, there’s a flishy-flashy theme that blinks every...
Jake: What? I don’t want things to flash, I want to read my email.
Manu: No? Well then, what about this fluorescent pink theme that will make your screen look very special when your friends are looking at...
Jake: No pink please!
Manu: Oh. Then maybe this hyper dynamic and playful theme that makes all links on the page jump away each time you try to click on...
Jake: Are you insane? Please, just give me something usable. If I want flashy game-like graphics, I can use High Score. If I want something dapper for my friends to look at, I can use Shiny. If I want cartoon characters hanging out here and there in my Gmail, I can use Zoozimps. I just want something dead simple.
Manu: What about stripping the Gmail interface to the bare bones, like these two new themes, Basic Black and Basic White?
Jake: That’s better. The dark one may be good for my eyes.
Manu: Great! Do you have an Android phone?
Jake: Yes.
Manu: Then you may like this Android theme too. How about that?
Jake: Nice! Some graphics but still subtle. Give me more.
Manu: Relaxing tree tops? This one ain’t blinking.
Jake: Not bad! What about something that would feel more handmade?
Manu: You’re in luck, sir. I have this cool Marker theme in store for you. Very unprofessional.
Jake: Nice — I’m gonna stick with this one for now.
Manu: Good choice! See you next time for some more.
Manu: Hey, how would you fancy some new Gmail themes?
Jake: Sure, I would love that! How usable are they?
Manu: Huh, usable? Well, there’s a flishy-flashy theme that blinks every...
Jake: What? I don’t want things to flash, I want to read my email.
Manu: No? Well then, what about this fluorescent pink theme that will make your screen look very special when your friends are looking at...
Jake: No pink please!
Manu: Oh. Then maybe this hyper dynamic and playful theme that makes all links on the page jump away each time you try to click on...
Jake: Are you insane? Please, just give me something usable. If I want flashy game-like graphics, I can use High Score. If I want something dapper for my friends to look at, I can use Shiny. If I want cartoon characters hanging out here and there in my Gmail, I can use Zoozimps. I just want something dead simple.
Manu: What about stripping the Gmail interface to the bare bones, like these two new themes, Basic Black and Basic White?
Jake: That’s better. The dark one may be good for my eyes.
Manu: Great! Do you have an Android phone?
Jake: Yes.
Manu: Then you may like this Android theme too. How about that?
Jake: Nice! Some graphics but still subtle. Give me more.
Manu: Relaxing tree tops? This one ain’t blinking.
Jake: Not bad! What about something that would feel more handmade?
Manu: You’re in luck, sir. I have this cool Marker theme in store for you. Very unprofessional.
Jake: Nice — I’m gonna stick with this one for now.
Manu: Good choice! See you next time for some more.
Want to stay up-to-date on all the latest Google Docs news, tips and tricks? Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/googledocs
A few months ago, my colleague Julia and I were at a technology conference for educators. Teachers were very enthusiastic when we demonstrated working together on documents at the same time and were really excited about how they could use it in their classrooms. What surprised us though, was how many of our favorite features - like working together at the same time - were brand new to them.
We knew we wanted to share that same excitement with even more people. Inspired by the Search Stories videos, we set off to tell a story using Google Docs. The result is this video:
We hope you enjoy seeing some of the cool features Google Docs offers in action. And if you think your friends would like it, show it to them too!
Posted by: Bryan Carroll, Consumer Operations Strategist, Google Docs
We knew we wanted to share that same excitement with even more people. Inspired by the Search Stories videos, we set off to tell a story using Google Docs. The result is this video:
We hope you enjoy seeing some of the cool features Google Docs offers in action. And if you think your friends would like it, show it to them too!
Posted by: Bryan Carroll, Consumer Operations Strategist, Google Docs
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