Google Drive Blog: March 2009

Just to clarify...

Friday, March 27, 2009

contact supportInsert Drawingherehere[Update 3/28/09: I failed to mention the researcher's name in the original post. His name is Ade Barkah]Posted by: Jonathan Rochelle, Product Manager, Google Docs

Drawing on your creativity in Docs

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I'm excited to tell you about Insert Drawing, a new feature we've added to Google Docs. Now you can create and insert rich, colorful drawings into documents, presentations and spreadsheets, to illustrate your ideas or just for fun.

The team and technology behind Insert Drawing originally came from the startup Tonic Systems, which Google acquired in 2007. The drawing feature that we've built relies heavily on a relatively new capability in browsers: the ability to render vector graphics. We use the SVG (scalable vector graphics) standard to accomplish this in most browsers and VML (vector markup language) where SVG is not available. Only recently has the performance and ubiquity of such technology enabled us to deliver what we hope is a delightful feature. As browsers continue to improve, we can deliver more and more useful cloud-based functionality.

As with any new feature, we'll be adding new capabilities over time. But even though we have our own to-do list, we'd love to hear about how you think we could improve drawings. You'll find Drawing within the Insert menu, so try it out and tell us what you think in our Help Forum.

Posted by: Tony Glenning, Drawings Team Lead

Find (and replace) my favo(u)rite colo(u)r and much, much more

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

find and replace

If you want to locate a word or phrase in your document, it's as easy as choosing "Find & Replace" in the "Edit" menu, or hitting Ctrl+F.

Then type the text you want to find, and click Find Next (or press Ctrl+G). If it appears more than once in your document, you can click Find Next again to select the next occurrence.

If you want to change some or all of the occurrences in your document, just type the replacement text in the second box. Click the Replace button to change a selected occurrence to the replacement text, or click Replace All to change all the occurrences in your document in one shot.

Find and Replace also supports additional options for controlling the search, which you can see by clicking the arrow next to the search box. Options such as case-sensitive matching and regular expressions. Find out more about this feature in this help center article.

Pretty useful tool, eh?

Posted by: Vivian Leung, Product Marketing Manager (and proud Canuck)

Custom views give you more control of your spreadsheets

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

enhanced mobile access

Imagine that you collected 100 names and t-shirt sizes using a Google Docs form. You might share a list view of the form responses, allowing people to fix errors (such as someone entering the wrong size) without worrying about a novice user accidentally messing up other parts of the spreadsheet.

Rather than embedding a published snapshot of a spreadsheet in your Google Sites page, you can now embed a read-only list view of the spreadsheet, which allows users to easily sort, filter and page through the data.

Posted by: Eric Bogs, User Interface Software Engineer

New Template: 2009 College Basketball Tournament Bracket

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

tournament bracketGoogleTournament functionPosted by: John Danaher, Software Engineer

On yesterday's email

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Google Docs Help ForumPosted by: Jennifer Mazzon, Google Docs Product Manager

Which is faster, warp or hyperdrive?

Friday, March 6, 2009

More and more people have started using forms to collect information from their co-workers and customers. To contrast these more "practical" uses, I thought that I'd share three fun surveys that you can send to your friends: one for Star Wars and Star Trek fans, another that lets you find out what your friends think about you, and one with 18 totally random questions (just because).

After your friends submit their answers, you'll be able to see nifty summary charts like the one above. According to my friends, hyperdrive is faster than warp. Would your friends agree?
For those of you who haven't used forms before, here's how to get started:

Preview the three surveys below and choose one.
Customize the survey with a personal message and even add your own questions and answers.
Email the survey to your friends.
Sit back and watch as the results come in.

By default, your friends will be able to see each others' responses as well, but you can change this setting before sending out the survey if you'd like.

For those of you that would like to create a form from scratch, you can go to your Docs List and click New > Form.

Have fun with these forms.

Posted by: Andrew Chang, Marketing Manager
Update: Several people have mentioned that they're enjoying the lively discussion (and sometimes debate) after filling out the survey. A common question has been, "How do I share the results with my friends?" An easy way to do this is to change the sharing options for the spreadsheet that holds the survey results. You can add your friends (using their email addresses) as viewers of the underlying spreadsheet and email them a link to the spreadsheet.

New Templates: Embedding spreadsheets in your website

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

embedspreadsheet templatesVertex42.comEmbedded ScheduleEmbedded CalendarReading ListCountdown TimerQuote of the Day20 ideas for embedded spreadsheetsPosted by: Andrew Chang, Marketing Manager

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