Category: Google Slides

Google has rolled out a behind-the-scenes update that enabled comment notifications in Chrome and on Android for Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides.  Previously, when someone made a comment on a shared file, you would receive an email notification that the comment had been made on the document.  Now you will get a standard notification on your Android devices or in Chrome when these comments have been made on the file.

A new update to Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides is hitting the Google Play Store that brings a more effortless way to get to your files while you are offline.  In the update, recent files you have been working on are automatically downloaded to your device so you will have them when you are offline.  Right now, if you want to work on a file while you are offline, you have to flag that file to download to your device.  If you forget, you are out of luck until you get back online.  This new feature removes this manual step.

Following up on notifications coming to Google Drive, Google has announced that their productivity apps, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, all have the ability to send you and you can control push notifications from the apps.  The update to the three Android apps will be rolling out to the Google Play Store and should come to your devices over the course of the next three days.  While push notifications themselves are not necessarily new to the productivity apps, how you control them is in this update.  Previously, if you did not want push notifications from Google Drive, Sheets or Slides, you could only deactivate that feature from Google Drive.  That is now no longer the case.

Google continues to develop their suite of Office-like apps, Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides, and the latest update to the web, Android and iOS versions of the app are all aimed at improving collaboration on files.  The updates are rolling out now to the various platforms and for your Android or iOS device, it may be several days before you see the new builds of the apps hit your phone or tablet.

Before I get to the changes that Google announced on the Android apps, let’s first talk about the changes to the web version of Google Docs.  Now you can instantly add a comment when you

Google Docs for Web Comments

highlight a piece of text.  When you highlight that text, on the right you will now see a comment bubble pop up.  Click on it and add your comments about that portion of the text.  Want to add someone to collaborate on the document, just start typing in their name and it will popular their email address in the comments and will send them an email notifying them.  They can then add comments to the document too, bringing teams together in a more efficient way as everyone is working from the same, literal, page.

Now let’s turn to Android.

Google’s efforts to continue to improve the suite of Google Docs apps continues as the inch ever closer to being on par with Microsoft Office.  The latest update is to Google Slides, the presentation app for Android, with the addition of some more advanced editing features as well as bug fixes and improvements. The update is build 1.2.452.11.30 for those keeping score at home and is rolling out now to the Google Play Store. If you have Google Slides installed already, you should see the OTA update for it in the next few days.

If you missed it, I did a four part series on my migration from Microsoft Office to Google Docs for my day-to-day work. At the time of those posts, Google Slides was already powerful and very close to being on par with PowerPoint.  That gap is now closed further with this update.

My Migration to Google Docs Part 1 – The Setup

My Migration to Google Docs Part 2 – Google Docs on All The Toys

My Migration to Google Docs Part 3 – Between the Google Sheets

My Migration to Google Docs Part 4 – Sliding to Google Slides

While I said in the first part of this series that this migration isn’t for everyone, I do encourage to give the Google Docs suite a try. I think you will find that they can accomplish 95% of everything you need in these apps (save you power Excel types).

Google Slides for Android – Free – Download Now

Google has released an update to Google Slides today that will bring improve slide sharing, especially for those of you who share slides while using Google Hangouts.  The update is build 1.2.372.11.35 for those keeping score at home and it is a build for both Android phone and tablet devices.  It was released by Google today into the Google Play Store but it may take a few days to reach your devices.

As a reminder, for those who did not catch my series of articles on migrating to Google Docs, you can read Part 4 which covered my move to Google Slides.

Google Slides for Android – Free – Download Now