This week in Docs: Import/export and paste special improvements

Yesterday, we announced the vertical merge feature in Google spreadsheets, and today we’re happy to share two new features that we hope will make analyzing data a little more efficient.

More import and export support in Google spreadsheets
Now you can convert most pivot tables between Microsoft Excel files and Google spreadsheets for powerful data analysis in whatever file format you prefer. Additionally, filters that help you better visualize and organize your data are now supported in our import and export conversion tools.

To import a pivot table you created in Microsoft Excel, click the File menu in Google spreadsheets, and select import, then select the file from the import options, and click the import button. If you’ve created a pivot table in Google spreadsheets, go to File in the spreadsheet, then click Download As, and choose Excel.

More paste special options in Google spreadsheets
Sometimes you need to copy data in cells that have lots of formatting and formulas, but you don’t always want to paste everything in the cell. For instance, you may want to copy and paste the data in a range of cells, but not the borders that you placed around the cells.

We’ve added four new paste special options including: paste all cell contents except borders, formulas only, data validation only, or conditional formatting only. You can find these new options in a list under “Paste Special” in the Edit menu of Google spreadsheets.


We hope these latest features make working with Google spreadsheets more efficient and productive. As always, let us know what you think in the forum or in the comments.

Merge cells vertically in Google spreadsheets

There are many times when you want to format your spreadsheets in a certain way to make your data easier to read and understand. Starting today, we’ve extended the merge functionality to let you create vertical merges across several rows of data.

In the spirit of the NFL season, let’s say you want to host a football tournament for your friends. To make it easier for them to cast their votes on the winning team, you organize the NFL teams by conference and division in a Google spreadsheet. Using vertical merges, you can assign headers to sets of rows. Simply select the set of cells you’d like to merge, then click on the down arrow next to the merge icon, and select Merge vertically.


In the NFL spreadsheet, you’ll see that some of the team names don’t fit on one line in the width of the cells of Column C.

To improve the formatting, select the cells across all the rows of teams in the AFC (rows 2-17) and 2 columns (C and D) and click Merge horizontally. You’ll have 16 merged cells that span 2 columns for better formatting.


After applying vertical merges to all of the conference and division headers and horizontal merges across the team names in each conference, you’re ready to share with your friends for the tournament!


To undo a merge action, select a merged cell and click Unmerge in the drop-down menu.

We hope you enjoy customizing the formatting of your spreadsheets with this feature. Let us know what you think in the comments.

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.

Tips & Tricks: Using the new Subtotal function in Google spreadsheets

This week, we added the Subtotal function to our list of functions in Google spreadsheets. One of the benefits of the Subtotal function is that it works well with AutoFilters by only using unfiltered data when performing calculations (other functions such as Sum include filtered data calculations). Subtotal also lets you change what function you’re performing on those values very quickly, by selecting an item from a drop-down list. See our help article for details.


This versatile function is often used by accountants, finance professionals, and business consultants. It can also be extremely convenient for any user -- let’s show you why.



Say that you’re helping to plan your family’s annual Labor Day beach weekend. You want to decide how many hot dogs and veggie dogs to buy. To figure this out, you create a Google spreadsheet that includes all your family members, their meat preferences, and the number of hot dogs everyone ate at the past several family gatherings:




To quickly count how many veggie dogs you need to buy based off the number of veggie dogs eaten last month, add a filter to the columns , sort to “Yes” only in Column C, and type in this Subtotal function underneath the table:


=SUBTOTAL(109, F2:F14)



Cells F2 through F14 show the number of hot dogs each family member ate last month. “109” is the code that references the Sum function (“9” would also work). Typing in a regular Sum function in this case (=SUM(F2:F14)) would have added all dogs, veggie or not, whereas Subtotal ignores hodogs which have been filtered.




Another neat feature of the Subtotal function is that the function code (such as “109” above) can easily be changed to refer to different operations like Average, Minimum, and Maximum. As a result, Subtotal can be used to condense a number of calculations into a small space.



Let’s say you want to see not only the total number of hot dogs eaten each summer month, but also the average number eaten. Rather than creating two different functions (Sum and Average) for each month, you can use Subtotal.

  • In an open cell -- let’s use B15 -- you would create a drop-down list with the codes for the Sum and Average function (109 and 101 respectively).
  • And under the column for each month, you would write a Subtotal function, but reference cell B15 instead of typing in a code.
For June, therefore, your function would read: =SUBTOTAL(B15, D2:D14)



Every time you change which code appears in cell B15 through the drop-down, the values under each month will change, showing either the total or the average number of hot dogs eaten by your family with just one click.





We hope the Subtotal function makes your data analysis a lot easier -- and maybe even more fun.



Lai Kwan Wong, Software Engineer

Making Google spreadsheet functions easier to discover and use

From the simple SUM function to GoogleLookup, Google spreadsheets continues to add features that help you power through data. But sometimes it can be a challenge to find the one you need to use or figure out the right way to use it. We’ve made the following improvements to help you quickly discover and understand all of the powerful functions that Google spreadsheets has to offer.



Help snippets directly in spreadsheets

You shouldn’t have to interrupt your work to figure out how to build a particular formula, which is why we’re bringing help documentation directly into Google spreadsheets.



As soon as you start typing a formula into a cell, you’ll notice an auto-suggest box with the name and syntax of the function you might be looking for. Mouse over any of the suggested functions, and you’ll see a description that explains the function, its syntax, and how it’s used. You’ll also see links to related content and a link to the complete list of functions.





Auto-suggest displays syntax and help documentation for all 300+ available functions and even recognizes nested functions, making it easier to build complex formulas.



Revamped help documentation in the Google Docs Help Center

We’ve also completely rebuilt our help documentation for Google spreadsheet functions with invaluable input from some of our most active forum users such as ahab, yogia1, Ted J, A.P.L, MarinusP, and other forum Top Contributors. Here’s a look at what’s new:

  • A completely new table for browsing help documentation for all 300+ Google spreadsheets functions. This table is easy to browse, sort or search. To view the table, you can visit the Google Docs Help Center, click the complete list of functions link in the auto-suggest help snippets, or select Help > Function list in any Google spreadsheet.
  • Help documentation for nearly 60 new functions and formulas.
  • More detailed help documentation, including better instructions for some of our most sophisticated and complex functions.
All of these improvements are now in English, and will be available in additional languages in the coming weeks. So take advantage of these new resources at your fingertips and you’ll be a Google spreadsheets ninja in no time.



Michael Schidlowsky, Software Engineer

Use new Google spreadsheets charts in your documents and drawings

Today, we’re releasing a few new types of charts, plus a feature that allows you to copy your charts from spreadsheets into documents and drawings. Sound good? Bet your bar chart it does. Let’s show you how it works.

Start by creating a chart. Then, select the chart by clicking on it once, which will display the chart’s name. Click the chart name or the arrow next to it to open the dropdown menu of chart actions. From the menu, select Copy chart.


Next, open the document or drawing where you’d like to insert the chart and position the cursor where you’d like the chart to go. Use the Web Clipboard dropdown menu, as shown below, to locate your copied chart.


As you hover the mouse over the menu item for the chart, a thumbnail will be displayed. Clicking on the chart item will paste it into the document as an image, which can then be resized, aligned, etc. Here’s an example of a chart pasted into a document:


Note that the chart snapshots are just that -- they are images of the chart at the time of copying and therefore do not update as the spreadsheet data changes. If you need to update a chart, just copy and paste it again.

The name of the chart shown in the Web Clipboard menu is the same as the chart’s name in the spreadsheet, which you can easily change from the default name, “Chart 1.” To rename a chart, select Edit chart from the chart’s action menu, and enter a new name on the Customize tab. This is particularly handy when working with charts from multiple spreadsheets.

We’ve also introduced a few new types of charts to Google spreadsheets. We now support candlestick charts and combo charts (which allow you to show columns, lines, and area lines all on the same graph). You can also use the GeoMap chart to insert a data-driven map of the world, a continent, or a country into your spreadsheet. Our TreeMap chart, meanwhile, should be exciting for the statisticians and logicians among you.

We hope this makes creating great documents easy as pie (charts, of course).

This week in Docs and Sites: A spreadsheets shortcuts menu, PPTX support and more

This week, we’re introducing a number of enhancements to Google Docs and Sites: a spreadsheets shortcuts menu, support for PPTX conversion, a new RSS gadget, and improved mobile rendering for Sites.

Spreadsheets shortcuts
Although shortcuts have long been available in your Google spreadsheets, we've added a shortcuts menu to spreadsheets to make them easier to find -- saving you even more time. Hit Ctrl+/ (or Cmd+/ on a Mac) to pull up the list of shortcuts and learn new ways to sharpen your spreadsheet skills. Remember that shortcuts can vary depend on the operating system and browser you're using -- the example below is the menu you’d see if you were using a Chrome browser on a Mac.


Support for conversion of PPTX files to Google presentations
Starting today, you can convert PPTX files to Google presentations by either uploading the file from your desktop or converting the file from your documents list. Just follow the same simple steps as you normally would when converting files to Google Docs formats.

Better customization for your RSS Gadget in Sites
We’ve also added a new RSS gadget for Google Sites to our “Featured” gallery.


The new RSS gadget gives you complete control over the appearance of the gadget: You can customize any aspect of the feed, including font, color, size, number of items to display, and post length.

To set your gadget, go to Insert > More Gadgets > Featured, and look for RSS Feed.


Improved mobile rendering
After we released our initial version of Google Sites automatic mobile rendering, you enabled the option for over 50,000 sites, making it clear that you’re looking for a better way to easily publish content for mobile devices.

Based on what you’ve told us, we’re adding the additional behaviors to make automatic mobile rendering on Google Sites even better, including:
  • Images and header logos automatically scale in mobile mode
  • Gadgets and text boxes have widths that fit mobile devices
  • Pages with multi-column layouts stack columns vertically on mobile


BeforeAfter

Thanks for continuing to let us know what you think about our products -- these changes wouldn’t be possible without you.

Summarize your data with pivot tables

Starting today, we're rolling out pivot tables in Google spreadsheets. Pivot tables make it easy to process and summarize large data sets in seconds. Check out the video below for a look at how pivot tables work in Google spreadsheets:



In essence, a pivot table does just that -- it allows you to “pivot” or rotate data, thus looking at it from different angles and seeing a variety of patterns which may not be immediately obvious. Let’s take a very simple example of a list of students. This list includes a number of students and some information about them, including gender, class level, and major.


To create a pivot table, select your data and go to Data > Pivot Table Report. In the pivot table report editor, you can add fields to set your rows, columns, and values and can drag and drop the fields around within the editor. Here, we’ve used pivot tables to display the number of students in each class level by gender.


Fields in the Values section can be summarized using built-in formulas to sum, count, or otherwise calculate your data. In the example above the number of students in each class level was summarized via a simple count.


The filter section lets you specify exactly what data you want to be included in the pivot table. For example, we can choose to only count the students in certain extracurricular activities.


With each change, the pivot table is updated in real-time for both you and any collaborators. If you prefer to make changes in batches, you can switch to manual mode. In this mode, your changes won’t be saved until you select Update table.

You can try pivot tables out for yourself using this template or by using your own data set. Please note that pivot tables from Microsoft Excel can’t be uploaded to Google spreadsheets at this time.

We hope you’ll enjoy exploring pivot tables in Google spreadsheets and that they’ll save you time analyzing your data. Check out our help content for even more examples.

Upload images in Google Spreadsheets

(Cross-posted to the Google Enterprise Blog)

We’re excited to announce that you can now upload images to Google spreadsheets. From the Insert menu, select Image... Then, choose an image file to upload into your spreadsheet.


With this feature, you can upload an image already stored on your computer, search for an image online, or add personal photos directly from one of your Picasa Web Albums.


Let us know what you think in the Google spreadsheets forum!

Improved printing in Spreadsheets

In January, we added support for Google Cloud Print to mobile documents. Today, we’re extending that functionality to mobile spreadsheets and adding some additional printing improvements to the desktop version of Google spreadsheets.

Mobile printing for spreadsheets
Now you can print your spreadsheets to any cloud-connected printer right from your phone by selecting Print... underneath the spreadsheet title. This feature will work on most phones and tablets that support HTML5, such as devices running Android 2.1+ and iOS 3+.


Improved desktop printing
We’ve added a number of printing options, including spreadsheet titles, sheet names and page numbers. You have control over which of these you want to print.


We hope you enjoy these improvements to printing.