Mountain View, California — Google Docs has long enabled users to collaborate their documents between one another. Google Docs has announced some new updates this week that makes it easier for users to share items, upload multiple documents, as well as to collaborate and work together on particular Google Docs files. The new tweaks also brought a slight change to the Google Docs homepage with a more uniform and simpler look.
In the past, Google Docs users had to set the access permission status for documents, spreadsheets and presentations each at a time. But Google has kept to its commitment it made back in July to enable Google Docs users to establish shared folders.
But once Google completes rolling out its fresh round of Google Docs changes, sharing a group of items or files is now easily done just by putting those items into a folder and then sharing that folder to members of your working group.
One of Google Docs smartest features is its ability to let you share and collaborate on documents with other users just by dragging and dropping the files you need to share into a folder, and then click “share this folder”and invite members of your workgroup. The people in your workgroup will get an e-mail notifying them you have shared this folder.
Once a user has logged on to Google Docs, members of your workgroup can instantly see the files you have added to the folder, and also drop files into your folder to share with the same group. Likewise, if you add somebody to the list of you workgroup who can access that folder they can instantly access all the items contained in that folder. This means that you do not have to share files one by one anymore.
Shared Folders:
“We are rolling out these updates gradually, so they should be available to everyone soon,” said Google Docs product manager Vijay Bangaru. “As you would expect, if you add an item to a shared folder, it will automatically be shared, and if you add someone to an existing shared folder, they will instantly get access to all of the folder’s content.”
The new feature is handy, but there is one small catch you should keep in mind. Even though a document is in a shared folder, the access permissions for that document are attached to the folder–not the file. So if you remove a document that you created it out of the shared folder, your workgroup will no longer be able to access the document.
Multiple Item Uploads:
In addition to sharing folders, Google has also made it easier to upload multiple items to Google Docs. “Instead of selecting one file at a time, our new upload page enables you to choose multiple files and upload them simultaneously, in just a couple of steps,” Bangaru said.
Google Docs’ new upload pages now allows you to choose multiple files and upload all of them together at the same time.
While the uploading is in progress, files are automatically converted to the Google Docs format, with a status bar indicator shows a progress report on the transfers. What is more, multiple files can be uploaded through the Google Docs List Data API, which enables client applications to upload documents to Google Docs and list them in the form of Google Data API feeds. Documents can also be translated into more than 40 different languages in Google Docs. Google also said protecting data is a priority in light of the Sidekick disaster.
Another update on Google Docs has something to do with the “Items Not in Folder,” which many Google Docs users have been employing as a work flow tool. And here are the instances when files are categorized as such:
“We have made one change to ensure the filter functions as expected in light of the new shared folders,” Bangaru said. “If you share an item with me and I put it in a shared folder, it is still in your ‘items not in folders’ view.”
Other Upgrades:
Other upgrades to Google Docs contains the ability to automatically detect and translate foreign languages in Google spreadsheets, e-mail the Google Spreadsheets workbook as an attachment in .xls, .csv, .ods, .pdf and other file formats, or even translate an entire document into more than 40 different languages.
“We also improved the old ‘Move to’ dialog,” Bangaru said. “The new ‘Folders’ dialog offers you total control which folder or folders an item is in. And when you are in a folder, you also have the ‘Move to’ dialog, which allows you to quickly move an item to a different folder.”
Finally, Google has also slightly fine-tuned the Google Docs program. Some are the changes shine on colors, spacing and buttons. Overall, these might just be some minor enhancements but you will appreciate these enhancements if you are a big time Google Docs user.