Saturday, December 20, 2014

The 11 Most Important Google Drive Updates in 2014

December 20, 2014
Throughout this year Google Drive has been continuously releasing interesting updates to enhance the performance of its services namely Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms. Below is a run-down of some of these updates that you need to be aware of :


1- Suggested Edits 


This new feature is great for collaborative work on Google Docs. Before, when you share a Google document with your collaborators and grant them the editing rights they can edit anything in it. But with "Suggested Edits" you, as the owner of the document, can control this editing process by allowing collaborators to make only suggestions which you can either accept or reject. This new feature is not available on Google Docs for mobile. Here is the tutorial

2-  Edit Office Files in Google Drive


Sometimes people send you files and you need to be able to open them, make some edits, and send them back. If they don�t use Docs, Sheets and Slides it can be a challenge. With the latest update from Google Drive, this is no longer an issue because both the web and mobile apps for Docs, Sheets, and Slides let you edit Office files�without conversion�so you can now edit and send back files in their original format.

3- Widescreen Format

Google now allows a widescreen view of presentations. Now when you try to make a new presentation you will have a widescreen where you can get a ton of new space to fill with words, charts, tables or even a simple, beautiful image. You can also change the size of your slides using the pull down menu in the theme chooser, or by visiting Page setup in the File menu. Widescreen presentation are a good fit for TV or monitor.

4- Editable Master Slide

This functionality allows users to change customize the theme of their presentations as they like. can now easily tailor how content appears on every slide by selecting "Edit master" from the Slide menu. For example, you can set all of your header fonts to Alconica, make all of your first level bullets bold, and add a logo in the bottom right corner.

5- Edit, Crop, and Add Borders to Images in Slides

With this new feature, users can now customize and edit images they use in their Slides . Before this update, users were limited as to what they can do with images they upload to their slides,now Google makes it easier for anyone to crop, edit, apply shape masks, and add borders to their images from within the presentation.

6- Slide App is now available

Like Docs and Sheets, Google Slide has now a mobile app for both iOS and Android. Using this app, you will be able to create and edit slides on the go, even if you are offline.
7- The New Google Drive
Google has recently released a new updated version of Google Drive with a fresh and lively  look. The new Google Drive is the same as the old one except that it becomes "faster and works more like you re used to on your computer". I have spent sometime tinkering with it today and it seems way user friendlier than the older Drive.

8- Create Automated Lists in Google Docs
 This feature allows Google Docs users to easily  create automated lists. What this new feature does is that it detects the type of list you want to create and it automatically provides it for you. For instance, let's say you want to create a numbered list. If you type in number one for the first line, it automatically creates a numbered list for the rest of your data  and the same applies to other list genres.

9- Spell Check in Google Sheets
The Spell Check functionality Google added  to its Sheets is the latest improved version of spell check. It resembles in the way it works the spell check that exist on Google Slides and Google Docs. In this version, spelling is checked against the web (similar to Docs and Slides) so that the dictionary is always up-to-date. Also like in Docs and Slides, people can add words to their own dictionary so that the spell checker won't mark names or abbreviations as misspellings in the future

10- Google Plus Polls
Google+ Polls which allows users to easily create interactive polls and share them with others. Using this new feature , you can now poll your students or you followers right from your Google Plus page.

11- Enhance Google Presentations with these new features
Google Slides added some new cool features that allows users to easily adjust and edit images within Slides. With the new feature, users will not only be able to crop and add borders to their Slide images but will also edit and work on them without leaving the Slides.

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