Google Docs
has a new look, which you can enable by clicking on the “try the new look” link
above the menu bar (it is always possible to revert to the old look in the help
menu). Google has adopted the new look across the board, i.e. with all major
Google apps including:
- Gmail
- Google Calendar
- Google Docs
- Google Sites
- Blogger
Apart from
the new look, Google Docs also has some new features which are useful for
students and teachers. The two most
useful for teachers and students are probably support for compressed file types
(.zip and .rar), offline viewing of documents and new functions for the web clipboard.
Support for archives – share whole folders
The support
for archive files in view mode makes it possible to share whole folders and
publish them publicly. That makes it possible to view, download or print a
specific file in an archive. In practice that means you have much of the
functionality of Dropbox when it comes to sharing files, even though sharing
via zip files is a little bit less convenient than sharing a folder directly. This
is only necessary when you want to share file types which you cannot upload to
Google Documents, as it is possible to upload whole folders from your PC share
and publish them as Google Docs collection.
Web clipboard upgrade
The web
clipboard has got some new functionality. Not only can you share several web
clips via the chrome extension, but is also possible now to insert
- Photos via Google Docs mobile app upload
- Drawings via separate drawing files
- Google Spreadsheet diagrams
Other new useful
features include:
- Page numbers in documents (particularly useful for writing papers)
- Offline viewing of Docs (as well as Gmail and Calendar) via Chrome extension and mobile app
- One-click cloud print from mobile app and within Google Docs
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