Today’s online businesses thrive on software and apps that are automated and multifaceted. Google Docs is a free online application that allows you to create, edit, and store documents and spreadsheets.
The app can do a ton of things, so familiarizing yourself with its features will allow you to collaborate better, write faster, and do more. Here are 8 Google Docs features that can help grow your business.
1. Choosing a Template
Most people use Google Docs purely for writing. Google Docs has numerous free templates you can use to improve your content creation abilities. You can tap into the app’s resume templates, business letters, brochures, and a lot more.
The templates are ordered in categories and within each category are several different templates. And since there are dozens of categories, you’ll likely find the one you’re looking for. To access the templates, go to File> New and click on “From template.”
2. Create or Remove Header
Headers are essential particularly when creating a document that has many pages. The header for your document may include elements like a title and page number on all pages.
Create your Google Docs header by double-clicking on the topmost part of one of your pages and entering a header text. Similarly, you can click on “Insert” from the upper navigation toolbar, then select “Header & page number.”
To remove a header, delete the text in the header before clicking out of the header space, and then into your document’s body text. You can also change the size of your title by narrowing the page margins. To do this, go to “Page setup” and select a preset “Paper size” and pull in the margins as you see fit.
3. Voice Typing
This is one of the rarely used Google Docs features. Typing using your voice is a great way to document something quickly or work on the go. Google Docs voice feature works best with Chrome browser─ just make sure your gadget has an in-built microphone.
Apart from converting audio to text, Docs’s voice typing feature lets you carry out advanced edits using spoken command. The system allows you to perform a wide range of operations (selecting certain words, paragraphs, and phrases). It also supports copying, cutting, pasting, scrolling, jumping through a document, and several types of formatting to text.
4. Collaboration With Remote Workers
Google Docs allows you to share documents you’re working on with co-workers and employees who are online. This way, you can edit and create documents as a team giving you the convenience of creating presentations or spreadsheets with remote employees. It also features color codes that show you the person responsible for each edit. It even indicates the time the last revision was made to your document.
If you often type out long reports, Google Docs could be your saving grace. In case you forget to save your document or there’s a power outage, you can be sure your documents won’t be wiped out. The platform continuously updates your progress in real-time and saves it to the cloud.
Say goodbye to a language barrier with Docs’s native system that allows you to translate documents into different languages. Select the Tools menu, then click the “Translate document” to choose the language you want.
5. Offline Mode
While you’ll need an internet connection to set up offline use, you don’t always have to be online to use Google Docs features. The good thing, offline editing Google docs lets you view and edit documents, slides, drawings, and sheets when you’re disconnected, and your work will sync when you go online.
6. Tricks for Spreadsheet Users
Docs’ spreadsheet tool takes care of everything from tables to graphs to complex equations. Google Finance feature is one of the Google Docs tips for advanced spreadsheet users. The feature allows editors to retrieve data about publicly-traded organizations by following an “object/attribute” model.
To use Google Finance, key in an organization’s stock ticker icon (the object). Then request particular sets of data about the organization (the attribute).
Another spreadsheet feature is GoogleLookup. It also follows the object/attribute pattern. You may use this feature to compare things, like cities. For example, you could use it to compare the populations of different cities in the U.S.
7. Research On the Go
Look up the meaning of a word quickly by right-clicking on the word and selecting “Define.” You’ll see the definition of your word on the right of the document, along with synonyms. All this you can do without exiting Google Docs.
Note that this operation will bring up a string of search results, related documents, and images. You can drag and drop the images straight into your document. Once you have your images, use Docs’s “crop or edit images” feature to optimize your image. As you edit your image, you’ll find options to recolor your image or adjust its brightness, transparency, and contrast.
You can also tweak what type of results you want the research tool to give you when you perform a search operation. Just make use of the drop-down menu adjacent to the search bar to view the various types of information for your topic.
8. Add Fonts
While Google Docs’s top editing toolbar allows you to access about two dozen native fonts, some people might not find a font that pleases them here. To add your fonts, open a document and click the fonts drop-down and select the “More fonts” (top option on the toolbar). This will give you a list of fonts that you can check off to add to the default list.
Take Advantage of These Google Docs Features
Google Docs comes with numerous out-of-sight features that can help you do a lot with little effort. It comes with a spreadsheet app, a word processor, and a presentation builder—all for free.
Google Docs features will allow you to do more than just usual writing and editing. The application works with all major browsers and is best used for collaboration, and making documents using premade templates.
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