Tag: Google Sheets

Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides all have an update rolling out in the Play Store for Android.  The update brings the normal raft of bug fixes and performance improvements but also has some new editing tools.

There are new toolbar items will allow you to more easily format tables, images and drawings within your Docs, Sheets or Slide documents.  The editing features are tools that have been on the web-based versions of the apps so these updates bring feature parity between the platforms.

The Google G Suite team has announced that effective September 13th of this year, the web clipboard in the suite of apps will no longer be available.  The feature, according to the G Suite team, is rarely used as the ability to copy and paste across browser windows has improved over the years.  The feature was originally designed for when this was more challenging.

As these issues have become less prevalent across many browsers, we’re looking to simplify the user experience by removing the web clipboard, which is rarely used, on September 13th, 2017.

The post goes on to way that the team is working continue to improve the copy and paste feature within the web-based versions of the apps.

The Google Drive team is rolling out an update to the web that allows you to preview password protected Microsoft Office documents.  The update is rolling out to everyone and should get to your account over the course of the next few days.  Once you have it, if you attempt to open a password protected file, you will be prompted for the password and can then preview the file.  The key word here is preview.  You won’t be able to edit the document nor will you be able to open it up in Google Docs, Sheets or Slides.  It is a read-only preview.

While it is limited, this is a nice edition to Google Drive.  Many users store Microsoft files on Drive so being able to at least preview a document before going through the process of opening it up in the apps could potentially save some time.  Interestingly, the ability to open or preview password protected files is something that even Microsoft does not offer with Office 365 online.

Big changes are coming in the latest update to Google Sheets for Android, web and iOS.  There are some nice formatting options that are coming to the app but probably the bigger news is that the Android app will have mouse support for the new breed of Chromebooks that run Android apps.

From a formatting perspective, Sheets will now have the ability to rotate text (this is found under Format>Text rotation) to make your spreadsheet cleaner and more visually appealing.  For example, you could rotate column headers 90-degrees so that they are vertical instead of wide across the column top.  This means you can make those columns more narrow.  Add to that, finally, the ability to format numbers in Accounting style.  This is one of those “why wasn’t it there before?” features but hey, it’s here now.  Under Format>Number>Accounting, you can change your numbers into this format for easier and more consistent reports on budgets and other financial spreadsheets.

Rounding out the formatting updates are new border styles.  There are several new border styles in the app that have various thicknesses and double borders.  These are all found under Toolbar>Borders>Border styles.

The big changes though and probably the more exciting ones for most are the changes to the Android (and iOS app) app for Sheets.

Google is in the process of rolling out updates to their Android apps for Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides.  The updates, mainly aimed at G Suite customers, brings a lot of improvements to each app individually but collectively brings them all in-app notifications.  Today, the way it works, is if you are collaborating with someone on a document, you get a notification that they have updated it – in Google Drive.  With the update to the apps, now you get the notifications within each app.  It is a bit of a no-brainer really.  Each app’s notifications are separate from the others so you will only see notifications for Google Sheets in Google Sheets.

Read on as there are other improvements beyond notifications.

An update is currently rolling out to the Google Play Store for Google Docs and Google Sheets that further both apps features around collaboration.  Both apps now allow you to create and assign action items to collaborators on a document or file.  For example, if you want to have a team member work on a specific paragraph or the financial figures in a particular part of the document or sheet, you can assign it to them and get notified when that task is completed.  It is a great way for teams to work together on a file and to make sure specific edits are completed.