In this video, Jess Stratton goes over all of the ways that Google Docs has evolved over time, including new menu locations for certain items, and ways existing features have expanded to make them easier to use.
- [Instructor] Google Docs has had a few small interface changes over time. While they won't affect how you learn in this course, you should know them so that you can take advantage of what they offer. On the top right-hand side of the screen, you'll see that my name has been replaced by an avatar icon. And also, to the left of that, if you're a G Suite user, you may see a zigzag arrow icon. This is the activity icon and it's for paying users only. But you can see who's accessed your shared file. On the right-hand side, you'll notice the new quick access dashboard. This is also in Gmail and other Google apps, such as Slides. You can quickly access your Google Calendar this way. I can look at my calendar and then click the X on the top right-hand side when I'm done. You can also access Google Keep and Tasks this way. If you don't like this sidebar at all, you can hide it by clicking the arrow icon all the way on the bottom of the screen. To bring it back, click show side panel. Directly to the left of this, you'll see the explore button to explore topics related to your doc or all of Google Docs. This isn't new, however, the way you can search has been greatly improved. You can now use natural, comfortable language to search. If you can't find something but you know you worked on it last month, you can come into the search bar and try typing show me all documents I worked on last month. I'll close out of this by clicking the X. Let's head over to the insert menu. On the insert menu, you can insert directly from Google Drawings without a new drawing in Docs itself. Even better, when the drawing updates, you can click a button to update it on the doc. You can also insert charts directly from Google Sheets this way, too. Staying on the insert menu, let's go to headers and footers. I'll hover my mouse over header and page number and click header. With the header open, you can now click options all the way on the right. From here, you can change the margins to give you better control of the size of the header and footer. I'll click cancel on this. On the format menu, certain formatting options have now been grouped together. For example, bold and italicized text is now in the text submenu. So these are just some ways that Google Docs has evolved over the years to make it easier to use.
Updated
3/8/2019Released
3/9/2015- Creating, naming, saving, and editing docs
- Formatting text
- Creating a table of contents
- Inserting images and tables
- Copying, renaming, and moving docs
- Publishing docs on the web
- Sharing docs
- Translating docs
- Using Google Docs on mobile devices
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Video: What's new in Google Docs?