Google Documents and Spreadsheets

In a couple of posts recently I've mentioned the free Google Documents and Spreadsheets service. I thought perhaps I should say a bit more about it.

Google Documents and Spreadsheets is one of the ever-growing range of free services from the search engine giant. In recent months I've been using Google Documents quite a lot.

Google Documents is the new name for what used to be called Writely, Google's free online word processor. Essentially, it lets you create documents using your web browser instead of a word processor such as Microsoft Word. The documents are then saved online for as long as you want them. There are several advantages to this.

1. It means that you can work on your document using any computer with an Internet connection. No need to keep switching disks or USB drives if you want to do some writing at home and some at the office.

2. Your work is automatically backed up on Google's own servers. Even if your own computer is damaged or stolen, the documents won't be lost.

3. Google Documents auto-saves your work regularly. If your computer is prone to occasional random crashes (as mine is), this can be a life-saver!

4. You can also allow one or more other people to access and edit documents using the 'Share' facility. I have used this for working collaboratively with my friend Simon, my co-author on 50 Great Ideas for Creative Writing Teaching.

5. In addition, you can publish your documents on the web for anyone to read. I did that very thing in my post about AGLOCO yesterday. There is no need to have your own website or know anything about HTML or FTP.

6. Finally, with Google Documents you can save easily to and from Microsoft Word, HTML, Rich Text Format (.rtf), and plain text (.txt).

I have found Google Documents especially handy for creating blog posts, and for the last few months all my posts (including this one) have been written on it. One reason I like using it for this is that Google Documents makes it very easy to create hyperlinks to other websites. You simply highlight the text you want linked and click on the 'Link' icon in the Google Docs toolbar. A pop-up box then appears for you to enter the URL of the site you want to link to, whether you want it to open on a new page, and so on. Once I have written my post, I simply copy and paste it into my Blogger account.

Are there any drawbacks to Google Documents and Spreadsheets? Well, obviously it doesn't have nearly as many formatting features as a word processor like Word. Also, as it's web-based, if you lose your Internet connection, you won't be able to access any documents stored on it. For this reason, I highly recommend that if working on your great novel, you save a copy on your own PC as well. Personally I tend to use Google Docs mainly for short documents such as blog posts, articles, outlines, notes, email newsletters, and so on. It has largely replaced the text editor I previously used for many of these purposes.

I don't know much about Google Spreadsheets, as I haven't yet had occasion to use this facility. If you regularly use spreadsheets, however, most of the above advantages will also apply.

To get a Google Documents and Spreadsheets account, click on any of the links in this post (or click here) to go to the homepage. If you click on Take a Tour of Google Docs and Spreadsheets, this will give you an overview of all the features on offer, including some I haven't mentioned. If you already have a Google Account, you can sign in from the homepage and get started straight away. If not, it is easy (and free) to apply for one - just click on Create a New Google Account on the far right of the screen. You can use your Google Account to access other free services such as Google Calendar as well.

You should find Google Documents and Spreadsheets quite easy and intuitive to use, but if you get stuck at any point, click on Help at the top right of the screen to access the extensive Help files.

Happy (Google) writing!