Google Docs tips and tricks you should know

Google Docs is an amazing word processing engine that may appear simple due to its limited tools visible on the main ribbon, compared to Microsoft Word but it has many hidden, tremendous features that take it to the next level. Google Docs is completely free and has become the most popular word processor tool for professionals and students, thanks to its rapid productivity. This is due to its amazing real-time collaboration feature, which allows multiple users to work on the same document simultaneously. Additionally, the documents are automatically saved as soon as content is typed and synced across all devices within seconds. The documents can be easily shared with others, who can comment, view, or edit them depending on the privileges granted to them.

There are dozens of cool features in Google Docs that you should know about, but let's discuss some of them below.

1. Collaboration in real-time (Share with team to work in the same time)

To collaborate on a document with others, you can share it with them by sending an invitation link. You can assign different levels of privileges, such as view-only, commenting, or editing. You can share the document by entering their email addresses, which will send them an invitation to access the document. Alternatively, you can send an encrypted link to access the document. All users can work on the document at the same time, and an active cursor indicates who is currently working on it. Any changes made by a user are updated in real-time within the document.

Note that if the document contains confidential data, it is best to invite specific users via email to ensure secure access. Sharing the document via an encrypted link is not recommended as anyone with the link can access it.

You can also apply the following privacy levels when sharing the document:

1. Editor: Allow users to view, edit and comment on the document
2. Commenter: Allow users to just view and comment on the document (If need suggestions)
3. Viewer: Allow users to just view the document

To share the document, click on File > Share > Share with others. Type the email of the user that you want to share with and set the privacy level or you can click on “Change to anyone with the link” to get the encrypted link and share with users to access the document.

2. Use Pre-Designed Google Docs Templates

Google Docs provides a vast range of free, professionally designed templates that can help accelerate your creative process. With just a few clicks, you can find templates for resumes, letters, work-related documents, personal projects, sales, education, and much more. These templates are easily accessible from the Google Docs homepage: https://docs.google.com/. Additionally, you can create your own custom template and save it for later use.

3. Auto-saving

Google Docs has simplified our lives by automatically saving content as we type, eliminating the need to manually save after every keystroke. Additionally, any changes made are synchronized in real-time across all devices.

4. Typo & Grammar Check With Perfect Phrase Suggestions

Google Docs is equipped with an impressive built-in AI checker that instantly alerts you to spelling and grammar errors as you type. This grammar checker not only detects spelling errors but also scans the entire document for phrases and provides suggestions that best fit your context. Therefore, you can focus on your writing without worrying about grammatical errors. To enable spelling and grammar checks, simply navigate to the "Tools" menu and select "Spelling and grammar check," "Show spelling suggestions," and "Show grammar suggestions."

5. Voice typing

Google Docs includes a built-in feature called "Voice typing" that can help you write more efficiently if you are not a fast typer. To access this option, go to "Tools" and select "Voice typing." Once clicked, a microphone icon will appear on the screen. Click on the microphone to activate it, and the color of the icon will turn red, indicating that it is active and ready to use. If the microphone icon is black or has a label saying "Click to speak," it means that it is not active, and you need to click it to activate it. Please note that you need to allow Google Docs to access your device's microphone to use this feature. When you click on "Voice typing," a small window will pop up in your browser, prompting you to "Allow" Google Docs to use your microphone. Simply click "Allow" to use this functionality.

6. Version History

Google Docs is keeping a version history of every document whenever the browser is closed after making a change to the document. Docs controls the version history from the time when the document was created and allows users to restore in case they want to go back to the previous version. You can also give names to the versions by clicking on “File > Version history > Name current version ”. To check or restore the previous versions, click on “File > Version history > See version history”

7. Table of contents

Google Docs can easily create Table of Contents for you within seconds from the headings in your document. Docs auto scans for the headings in your document and picks all the headlines that have been created with the proper heading tags including from “Heading 1” to “Heading 4”. It also picks some of the main points if you haven’t labeled your headings with the proper heading tags but is efficient if you have used the proper headings in your document.

8. Insert Images/media:

It’s simple to insert images directly from a URL or form your local computer. Docs also provides tools to crop, rotate and tons of other options. You can insert an image by simply clicking on Insert > Image > and then choose the option that best suits you.

9. Formatting and toolbars customization

Google Docs main page toolbar ribbon is very simple with all the basic tools available on it. You can easily find the basic tools that is required in a word processor. It is not very complicated like the Microsoft Word toolbar/ribbon with a huge variety of options. You can further do customization from View > and then simply check/uncheck the options that you want to see or hide.

10. Export / Download

Google Docs supports a variety of formats that are widely used to export your document. The document can be exported into the following formats:

1. Microsoft Word (.docx)
2. OpenDocument Format (.odt)
3. Rich Text Format (.rtf)
4. PDF Document (.pdf)
5. Pain Text (.txt)
6. Web Page (.html, zipped)
7. EPUB Publication (.epub)

11. Share / Email

You can directly email the document to someone by clicking on File > Email > Email this file . This will open up a popup where you will need to enter the email of the receiver. Also you can type the Subject, Message and on the top of that you can choose the format of the document (pdf, word, txt etc) that will be attached with the email. You can also send a copy to yourself by ticking the small checkbox on the top left side. Finally hit the Send Button

You can also share the document directly with others where they can access the document. You can assign the permissions as editor or viewer only. You can also Publish to Web where anyone can view the document.

12. Accessibility

This is one the most amazing features of Google Docs. You can access your documents anywhere from any device as long as you have an active internet connection. Your documents are stored on the cloud (Google Drive) that allows you to access your documents without having any issues. Google Drive is a free cloud based storage that gives you a free storage of 15 GB when you sign up for a gmail account. However, you do not have to worry about your documents because it’s stored on the most secure cloud based storage that can be accessed anywhere anytime.

Conclusion / Summary:

Based on the above points, we can conclude that Google Docs is a powerful word processing engine with lots of top-quality features, and the most incredible feature is collaboration with the team. This collaboration can increase productivity and the quality of work more efficiently in contrast to word processors that run locally on a PC. There are lots of other features of Google Docs that we haven't discussed in the blog, but keeping an eye on today's era, most applications and storage are moving to the cloud, and Google Docs has all the features that fully meet the needs of an organization or individual.