April in Review: New fonts galore and other fresh features

In the past month we’ve made updates both big and small to Google Docs, and today we’re announcing one more: web fonts in Google documents. Often the best way to get your point across is to present your idea in a creative, captivating way. Today, we added over 450 new fonts to Google documents to make it easier for you to add a little something extra to whatever you create.

To use these new fonts, click on the font menu and select “Add fonts” at the very bottom, which will take you to a menu of all the Google Web Fonts available.

Once you’ve selected new fonts, you’ll be able to select them from the font menu.

Whether you’re looking for the perfect font for your first comic book or fancy handwriting for your wedding invitations, we hope you try out the new fonts and create some eye-catching documents.

In addition to hundreds of new fonts, we have a lot of other exciting updates to report:

• Google Drive launched as a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all your stuff. 
• There are now a few more options for inserting images in Docs, including inserting from Google Drive, searching for images from the LIFE Photo archive, or taking a snapshot with your webcam. 
• Charts in spreadsheets now has support for minor gridlines and options to customize the formats of axis labels 
• Accessibility in Docs got better with support for screenreaders in presentations and with the addition of NVDA to our list of supported screenreaders. 
• From File > Page setup... you can now set the default page size for your new documents. 
• It's now easier for speakers of right-to-left languages by automatically showing bidirectional controls when you type in a language that might use them. 
• Apps Script had many improvements, including 
• A new ScriptService for programmatically publishing your scripts and controlling when they run. 
• A new function to find the root folder of someone’s Drive. 
• An increase in the allowed attachment size in emails from 5MB to 25MB. 
• An increase in the size of docs files you can create from 2MB to 50MB. 
• There are now over 60 new templates in our template gallery.

Posted by Isabella Ip, Software Engineer

Spell checking powered by the web

One of my early projects at Google was to improve the suggestions that are made when a query is misspelled in Google Search. The neat thing about that system is that it’s adaptive: our suggestions get smarter and smarter based on the words Googlebot sees as it explores the web.

But search isn’t the only place where I make spelling mistakes! And that got me wondering: could we take this adaptive technology and use it to make spell checking better in other places?

The answer is yes. To prove it, today we’re launching an update to spell checking in documents and presentations that grows and adapts with the web, instead of relying on a fixed dictionary. This update has a few big advantages over traditional spell checkers:

1. Suggestions are contextual. For example, the spell checker is now smart enough to know what you mean if you type “Icland is an icland.”



2. Contextual suggestions are made even if the misspelled word is in the dictionary. If you write “Let’s meat tomorrow morning for coffee” you’ll see a suggestion to change “meat” to “meet."
3. Suggestions are constantly evolving. As Google crawls the web, we see new words, and if those new words become popular enough they’ll automatically be included in our spell checker—even pop culture terms, like Skrillex. 

This new spell checker is available for English documents and presentations, but we plan to bring it to more languages soon. We’re really excited to give you a spelling system that continuously gets better. We hope it will make writing more efficient and enjoyable for you.

Posted by Yew Jin Lim, Software Engineer

Improved discussions, search scanned text in PDFs, and more

Fresh on the heels of adding discussions to Google presentations and the ability to edit within the Google Docs Android app, we’ve been hard at work on a few other new features to enhance your Google Docs experience.

All your comments--in one tidy place
We just added the discussions feature to Google drawings, and today we’re making it even easier to see a log of all of the comments that have been made whether you’re using drawings, documents, or presentations. Just click on the “Comments” button in the upper right corner of the editor to see a complete history of your discussions. You can reply in line, resolve or re-open comments, link directly to a comment, or change notification settings--without ever leaving the “Comments” menu.

Better text search for PDFs and images 
Last month, we launched a feature to let you search for text inside the PDFs in your documents list. Now, using the same optical character recognition technology, you can search for and copy highlighted text when you open a scanned PDF, like a fax or hotel receipt.

It’s not just stuff in your documents list: we’ve also made text in PDFs and images uploaded to Google Sites searchable.

And that’s not all... 
In addition to the features that were released today, over the last few weeks we’ve also made a bunch of other changes that you may have noticed. Now you can:

• Add custom Javascript and CSS to your Google Sites 
• See full names in document and presentation comments (instead of showing email addresses) 
• Use keyboard shortcuts for navigating between table cells in documents 
• Cancel running scripts from the Google Apps Script editor 
• Add donut charts and error bars in spreadsheets 

Posted by Ian Kilpatrick, Software Engineer

January in Review: Styles, Sparklines, Google+ sharing, and more

One of the best things about working on web apps like Google Docs is that it gives us the flexibility to frequently bring you new features and improvements. Starting this month, we’re going to make some small changes to how we communicate what’s been happening in the world of Docs. Instead of writing blog posts for each and every minor update, we're going to try bundling them together monthly to give you a detailed overview of our favorite features and a short list of other notable changes to make sure you don't miss out on anything new.

On that note, we’ve got a bunch of new features that launched today, as well as some great things that improved over the month of January.

Customizable styles in documents
Giving your document consistent and beautiful formatting should be easy. Before today, if you wanted to update all the Subtitles in your document to look a particular way, you had to change each of them one at a time. That’s too many steps. Now you can restyle all your regular paragraphs, headings, or titles with just a couple clicks. For example, if you want to update all the Subtitles in your document to be a particular size, set one Subtitle to that size, select it, right click and choose Update Subtitle to match selection. This will change all the Subtitles already in your document and automatically update the style for any new Subtitles you create. Plus, with the new Options menu in the styles dropdown, you can set the current document’s styles as the default for new documents or you can load your default styles into the current document.

Sparklines in spreadsheets and more charting options
In Google spreadsheets, we’ve added more charting options and support for sparklines to make it easier to communicate data. The new options give you a bunch of tools to create more sophisticated charts including different Y-axes on either side of the chart, formatting options for the axis and title text, and all sorts of other customization for how your lines, bars, or pies are displayed. We’ve also added sparklines, which let you display line or bar charts inside of cells and are handy for presenting and comparing data in a simple, bite-sized way. In the example below, we’ve used sparklines to plot currency exchange rates over a 30-day period.

Sharing forms on Google+ 
Sharing the forms you create in Google Docs with the right people shouldn’t be a hassle. Today we added a Google+ share to the form editor so that you can share your forms directly with your circles with just a couple clicks.

And there’s more… 
On top of today’s new features, here are some changes from January that you may have missed:

• Adding images to your docs from a high quality stock photo gallery. Simply go to Insert > Image, select Stock photos, and then search for the images that you want.

• A more streamlined format for document discussion notifications that batches multiple discussions into a single email.
• Quickly opening and selecting items from specific menus with keyboard accelerators. For example, when using Google Chrome, Ctrl+Option+E on a Mac and Alt+E on Windows or Linux will open the Edit menu.
• Copying and pasting via the context (right click) menu in documents when you have the Chrome App installed.
• Easily adding Google drawings or Google Groups discussions to a Google Site from the Insert menu.

• Progress bars while uploading files to Google Sites.
• Searching for text inside of PDFs in your documents list using Optical Character Recognition. 

If you’d like to learn more about what we’ve been up to in January, I’ll be doing a Hangout On Air later this week this to talk about these changes and listen to your feedback. Stop by our Community Manager Teresa’s Google+ page on Thursday, February 9 at 12 p.m. EST to tune in.

Posted by: Jeff Harris, Product Manager

Improved Accessibility in Google Docs and Sites

Today we announced some of the updates we’ve released recently to make Google’s applications more accessible to the blind community. For Google Docs and Sites, we’re pleased to announce new keyboard shortcuts and better screen reader support for our blind users.

Screen reader support in Google Docs and Sites
To help blind users read, edit and navigate content, Google Docs (including documents list, documents and spreadsheets) and Sites now support two screen readers: JAWS and ChromeVox. Here are a few examples of how screen readers work in Google Docs and Sites:

• In documents, you’ll hear feedback when you format text or insert tables, lists or comments in your document.
  
• In spreadsheets, you’ll hear the cell’s location, contents and comments when moving between cells.
  
• In both documents and spreadsheets, you’ll hear feedback as you navigate to areas outside the main content area, such as the menu bar, chat pane and dialog boxes.
  
• In your documents list, you’ll hear feedback when you upload or download a file, organize collections or move between files in your documents list.
  
• In Sites, you’ll hear feedback as you navigate and manage your sites, create and edit pages, and navigate through menus and dialog boxes.

For a complete list of screen reader-supported features and instructions for how to use them, visit the Docs and Sites help centers.

New keyboard shortcuts
We’ve also added new keyboard shortcuts to make it easier to use Google Docs and Sites. In your documents list, for example, you can use the up and down arrow keys to move through the files in the list, and you can open the selected document by hitting Enter. For a complete list of keyboard shortcuts, please refer to the help center articles for spreadsheets, documents, documents list and Sites.

With these new accessibility features, we hope to make it easier for everyone to use Google Docs and Sites. Please use this form to share your feedback directly with the accessibility team so we can continue to improve our products.

Posted by: Jeff Harris, Product Manager

Comment-only access in Google documents

In the past several months, we’ve added new discussion and commenting features to improve collaboration in Google documents. As an engineer, I often create docs with design concepts and send them to my team to review and provide feedback, and we use the commenting features to facilitate these discussions. Sometimes, I want to let team members view and make comments without allowing them to directly edit my document.

Over the next several days, we're releasing a new sharing option so that you can let people view and add comments to your documents without giving them edit access. To give comment-only access to your document, click on the Share button. From there, add in the contact you’d like to share your document with, and select Can comment.


You can also choose to give comment-only access to anyone with the link or anyone on the web by changing the sharing settings within the document. To do this, click Change in the sharing settings window and change visibility options to Public on the web or Anyone with the link, then change the access options to Can comment.

Similarly, if you’re using a Google Apps account, click Change in the sharing settings and select either “People at [your domain] who have the link can access” or “People at [your domain] can find and access.” Then change access option to Can comment.


Users that have comment-only access can view your document and add comments throughout -- without being able to change the content of the document directly.

We hope this latest feature in discussions helps you get the feedback you need while providing you with more control over the content in your docs. So comment away and tell us what you think -- below or in the forum.

Posted by: Sarah Wu, Software Engineer

This week in Docs: Page numbers in documents and one click to Google Cloud Print

This week in Docs, we’re announcing page numbers and page count in documents, plus one click to Google Cloud Print -- a couple features that we hope will save you time and energy.



Page numbers and page count in documents

Today we’re making it possible to add page numbers and page count to your documents. You can use the Insert > Page number option to add page numbers to the header or footer of your documents.





We’ve also added the option to insert page count, which displays the total number of pages in your document. You can combine the page number and the page count to create more advanced headers and footers. For example, to create the “Page 3 of 15” header below, take the following steps:

1. Go to Insert > Header.
2. Click the right align icon in the toolbar to move the cursor to the upper right corner.
3. Type the word “Page”.
4. Go to Insert > Page number > Top of page to add page numbers to the headers of your document.
5. Type the word “of”.
6. Go to Insert > Page count to add the total number of pages to the headers of your document.

Print with Google Cloud Print in just one click

Earlier this year, we announced Google Cloud Print for mobile documents. Google Cloud Print is a service in Beta that allows printing from any app on any device, OS or browser without the need to install any software.



We’re making it easier to print on the go directly from your mobile documents list in Google Docs. Simply select a document from the documents list and click on Actions > Print from the bottom toolbar. Currently, you can use Cloud Print in Google documents and spreadsheets.





To get started, you’ll need to connect your printer to Google Cloud Print. To learn more, check out the new site.



We hope you’ll take advantage of these latest features. Stay tuned for the next This Week in Docs.



Posted by: Chris Graves, Software Engineer Intern

Give your templates a refresh in the new document editor

We continue to add new features like pagination and discussions to the new document editor, and we want to make sure you always have access to all of the latest functionality -- whether you’re creating a new doc from scratch or using a template from the gallery. As part of this effort, we’re removing Google Docs templates created in the old document editor from the Google Docs template gallery.

Starting on September 30th, old style templates will remain accessible to their owners and to anyone who the template has been shared with, but they will no longer be visible in the public gallery. This will only apply to the public Google Docs template gallery; templates created in Google Apps domains will not be affected by this change.

You can ensure your templates remain in the gallery by converting them to the new document editor. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Open the document from your documents list
2. Click the Preview link at the top of the document to see what it looks like in the new editor
3. From inside the preview window, click the Update this document link

When old style templates are removed from the gallery on September 30th, the template owners will still be able to restore the templates to the gallery by upgrading them to the new editor.

By making this change, we hope to bring the best possible experience to more documents.

Posted by: Jeff Harris, Product Manager

This week in Docs: Copying drawings and better right-to-left table support

This week in Docs, we have a couple of new features that we hope make your life easier (and more visual). Read on.

Copying and pasting drawings across docs
Starting today, we’re adding support for the web clipboard to the embedded drawing editor so that you can work with drawings within documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. This means that you can now copy shapes from one document and paste them into existing drawings in another doc. You can also use the web clipboard to move a drawing from a document into the standalone drawing editor.


To try this out, open a new document and go to Insert > Drawing to create a drawing in the embedded drawing editor. Click the web clipboard icon and Copy shapes to web clipboard.


Open another doc that you want to paste the drawing into. Click the web clipboard icon and hover to preview the available items -- then, click to paste when you’ve located the drawing you’d like to use.

Better support for right-to-left tables
We’ve also made an improvement to tables that will be useful for Hebrew and Arabic users. If you’ve enabled right-to-left controls from your docs list settings, you’ll now have an option to create tables that are visually right-to-left. This means that the first cell in the table will be in the upper right and that tabbing through the table will move you to the left and down. You can modify a table’s directionality from the table properties dialog.


We hope you enjoy these new features. As always, let us know what you think in the forums and stay tuned for more updates in the next This week in Docs blog post.

Posted by: Aharon Lanin, Software Engineer

This week in Docs and Sites: Ignore All, Ubuntu, and Site soft delete

We’re releasing a small batch of features this week: In Google documents, we added an Ignore all option to hide all spelling suggestions for a specific word, and a new web font, Ubuntu. We’ve also made it easier to manage your deleted sites in Google Sites.

Ignore All
In documents, we already give you the option to add words to your dictionary so we won’t show spelling suggestions for them in the future. That feature is convenient if you’re using a surname that will be reused in many documents. But sometimes there’s a non-dictionary word that’s only used in one doc, which might make you hesitant to add that word to your dictionary for all docs. Ignore All lets you hide the spelling suggestions for a specific word, but only affects the doc that you currently have opened.



Ubuntu
We’re also adding a new font to Google documents: Ubuntu. Earlier this year, we made Ubuntu available in the Google Font API, and it quickly rose to become one of our most popular fonts. The font was commissioned by Canonical Ltd and designed by Dalton Maag as part of the Ubuntu operating system open source project.


Ubuntu has a simple, modern style that’s both recognizable and legible. It’s designed to look great in many sizes, and we hope you’ll find it useful in anything from document text to large poster headlines to small image captions.

You can learn more about Ubuntu and see how to use the font by visiting the Google Font Directory.

Soft delete your sites
We’ve received a lot of feedback that it was sometimes difficult to restore a deleted site, since you needed to remember a deleted site’s URL. Starting today, you will be able to view any sites you’ve deleted in the Deleted sites section of My Sites rather than needing to remember their URLs. In this section, you can also choose to restore your site or delete it permanently before 30 days have passed. Note that as before, after the 30-day grace period, deleted sites will be permanently deleted.


Let us know what you think of these updates. If you have any ideas for new features, submit them to our Product Ideas page, open until June 16.

Posted by: Kara Levy, Software Engineer