10 Compelling Reasons to Switch to Google Docs

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Worried about getting a licensed version of Office Suite? Or unable to figure out which MS Office software would fit your requirements? Why bother to get one at all?

Consider using Google Docs! Google Docs is a web-based, software as a Service (SaaS) office suit by Google, and the documents are being saved in ‘Google Drive’ as they change in real time. A collaborative tool to create, edit and share documents online by multiple users simultaneously. It has options to create Document, Presentation, Spreadsheet, Form, Drawing. You can also sync the documents to view offline. And changes made to document at one device, get updated everywhere.

Google Docs is free, fast and filled with interesting features:

1. Share ideas instantly with others by leaving comments

Share your ideas, suggestions in a single click while collaborating with others by sharing the documents.

2. Easy translation to other languages

You can translate your documents to 64 other languages.

3. Define words with an inbuilt dictionary

Find the meaning of words with an inbuilt Dictionary.

4. Research your topic with customized search
”Research
Research topics with customized search option on the document page itself.

5. Insert footnotes

Insert footnotes at the bottom of the page, cite attribution and references.

6. Share documents / E-mail collaborators
Sharing
Now share documents, even folder by adding people’s email id or by sharing link. No need to email attachments anymore and save storage spaces. You can email your collaborators who has access, you can also add new people with view, edit and comment permissions.

7. Publish to the web

You can publish the document to the web, there are three visibility options, ‘Public on the web’, ‘Anyone with the link’, and ‘Private’. If you set the visibility option to Private, then only people who are given access can access it.

8. Automatically detect links
It detects the web link which may available on the web.

9. Automatic substitution
It substitutes characters to symbols e.g. (c) to © and 1/2 to ½ etc.

10. Word count
It counts the pages, words, characters without spaces and with spaces.

However, Google Docs has some limitations –

Spreadsheets which are larger than 20 MB can not be converted to Google spreadsheets. And it must be under 400,000 cells and 256 columns per sheet. And images suppose to add to spreadsheets must be less than 2 MB.

To work offline, you will have to be working on Chrome or Chrome OS (Chromebook).

Documents which are to be converted to Google documents can not exceed 1 MB.

People with only viewing access can not publish the document. It’s not possible to publish PDF Documents.

Google Chrome Extension ?
Save to Google Drive. This extension allows to save any content(images,docs,pdf) directly to Google Drive. You can also change the format of the page which you want to save, at options page of the extension. And later at Document list, you can organize and share your documents.

Once a Google document is created, it can be downloaded in following formats; Microsoft Word (.docx), OpenDocument Format (.odt), Rich Text Format (.rtf), PDF Document (.pdf), Plain Text (.txt), Web Page (.html).

Similarly, a Google spreadsheet once created, can be downloaded in Microsoft Excel (.xlsx), OpenDocument Format (.ods), PDF Document (.pdf), Comma Separated Values (.csv), Plain Text (.txt), Web Page (.html) formats.

Also a Google presentation once created, can be downloaded in Microsoft PowerPoint (.pptx), PDF Document (.pdf), Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg), PNG image (.png), JPEG inage (.jpg), Plain Text (.txt) formats.

And a Google drawing once created, can be downloaded in PDF Document (.pdf), Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg), PNG image (.png), JPEG inage (.jpg) formats.

Other supported file formats for viewing are Apple Pages (.PAGES), Adobe Illustrator (.AI), Adobe Photoshop (.PSD), Tagged Image File Format (.TIFF), Autodesk AutoCard (.DXF), PostScript (.EPS, .PS), Fonts (.TTF, .OTF), XML Paper Specification (.XPS), and Archive File Types (.ZIP, .RAR).

Google has ended support for old Microsoft office formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt) from January 31, 2013. So it means after that users can’t export files to old office formats.

So what do you think of using “Google Docs”? Those who have not used it yet, we recommend to use it. Let us know which features you think are the best and make Google Docs unique and incredible?

All 22 Google’s April Fools Jokes in 2012

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Abhishek Mandloi

Google has never failed to amuse us with its pranks on April fool’s day for years. This has become part of the culture of the high tech company which is innovative enough to make Google Glasses, but at the same time humane enough to play these pranks. In between these jokes it keeps of adding new easter eggs to remain popular and showcase its technical capabilities.

Just like last year, this year also individual Google teams from various regions had pranks on different products. Let us see all 22 of them them one by one –

1. YouTube Collection

YouTube offered all its videos in DVD form for offline viewing. Once you place an order, they will deliver each one of video ever uploaded in a fleet of 175 trucks. For commenting, you can fill out paper forms and mail them to the uploader address. Check it out here.

2. Google Really Advance Search

Google search makes to an all-new level with Really Advance Search where you can find sites with words that “almost, but not quite entirely unlike” or “rhyming slang for” or “this exact word or phrase, whose sum of unicode code points is a mersenne prime” the word you have entered. You can also narrow down search by font, background texture and all impossible options. Though, this prank page in now taken off, you can still view its cached copy from here.

3. Underwater Image Search

Google Chine team has come up with underwater image search which is an excellent example of HTML5 and JS interactivity. Clicking on “I’m feeling lucky” button drops Google gold coins and other treasure in the ocean. Don’t forget to play with waves and search results here.

4. Qingming Search on Google China

Qingming Easter Egg

When searched for Qingming in Google China, you will notice a beautiful animated background. [note: it works only in Chrome]

5. 8-bit Google Maps

The low resolution graphics version of Google Maps for NES is the funniest of all jokes. These 8-bit maps also have some hidden monsters. Check them out here.

6. Google Translate IME

Japan team also came up with an IME prank which uses only a single key to input in Morse code for transliteration. Check out the below video with English subtitles by clicking cc on the player.

7. Gmail Tap

Inspired by the Japanese IME prank, Gmail team came up with better form of typing via Morse code through Gmail Tap. They went too far by introducing 2 sets of tap buttons to type 2 mails at once!

8. Google Street Roo

Google Street View Roo Project

Google Australia came up with the unique concept of installing 360 degree cameras on heads of thousands of kangaroos to capture the street view of inlands. Read the official announcement here.

9. Adwords – Click to Teleport

Adwords team had developed a new ad extension Click to Teleport that lets advertisers to teleport customers to business location.

10. Site Optimization for Rotary Phones

Google recommends webmasters to optimize their site for smart phones as well as rotary phones.

11. Google Apps Jargon Bot

Google Apps understand the pain of normal users that fails to comprehand the complex jargon of business world. Therefore they have introduced Jargon Bot that translates your docs, chats and emails into plain English.

12. Search Option Era-wise

On 1st April 2012, various users have noticed “Jurassic Era”, “Victorian Era”, “Enlightenment”, “Once Upon a Time”, “New Kingdom Era” in their search options depending on the queries.

13. Chrome Mutlitask Mode

Chrome team has introduced a new promising feature Multitask Mode that lets you increase productivity by letting you use multiple mice at the same time.

14. Google Onebox – Change the Weather

So for you had the ability to see the current weather conditions, now Google lets you change it.

15. Google App Engine – Cloud API

Cloud API from the App Engine gives developers the control over the actual clouds and naturally on the rains.

16. Google Analytics – Interplanetary Reports

Google Analytics team is all set to help webmasters by providing details of alien visitors. Currently GA provides information of site visitors from earth but now they are expanding their capabilities to the whole galaxy by offering interplanetary reports.

17. Google Self-Driving Cars to NASCAR

Google cofounder Sergey Brin nearly scared everyone by announcing that their real self-driving cars will now participate in NASCAR. They named the project as Google Racing.

18. Google Fiber Bar

Everyone was wrong. Google wasn’t laying fiber cables in Kansas city for ultra-fast internet of 1Gbps but they were actually making Fiber Bar that have 100 times more fiber than any source of fiber available today.

19. Google Voice for Pets

Google Voice for Pets

Now record a voice of your dog/cat directly via special voice communications collar around pet necks with Google Voice for Pets.

20. Google HR – Canine Hiring Process

Dog Job Interview at Google

Google HR department revealed the details of its Canine Hiring Process and claims that it is so rigorous that it equals the processes involved in getting a human job at Google. They quote

Bloodhounds are a natural fit for Search, while Rottweilers are often drawn to our corporate security positions.

21. Google TV Click

Who says you can’t control the television? Change the course of Titanic or make Neo chose the blue pill in Matrix or anything that you want with Google TV Click.

22. Google Play on Android

Android Easter Egg

The Android team deliberately messed up with the search of the popular artists. I think Rihana will be offended by this prank.

My favorites are 8-bit maps and YouTube collection. Tell us in your comments what do you like the most.

Binary and Hexadecimal Geeky Easter Egg for Google

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Abhishek Mandloi

This post was originally shared in Gtricks Forum – Google Fans Community, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to all.

Google never fails to amuse us. We still remember it’s recursion easter egg which tricked us clicking over it multiple times. From all the possible ways it can charm us with its Easter Eggs this one comes bit geeky. Mark from our Gtricks Forum points out that when you search for Hexadecimal or Binary, then the numbers of results are displayed in that format.

Binary is a denoting number system with only two symbols 1 and 0. This is the basic language that runs inside all our computers. So, if you see the number of results 0b1101111011000111010000000 means that there are 29,200,000 web pages for that search query.

Similarly, Hexadecimal is another number system with base 16 instead of ubiquitous 10. This number sytem is mostly used in digital electronics and has alphabets from A-F in addition to numbers 0-9 as symbols. When you search for Hexadecimal from Google, it will display 0xfbc520 results meaning 16,500,000 web pages of that search string.

Is Google doing this on some purpose? What would be the use of such fun elements like do a barrel roll trick? If you have ever tried programming then you might know the complications you face with different type of user data and displaying output according to them. For Google which handles more than 1 billion search queries daily, changing the output for very few of them demonstrates the flexibility they have built over the system. A lot of workload must have undergone to change their internal code to adapt to the queries on run time basis as per their needs. Possibly, this is another effort from them making the system different that has never been thought before and extending to the future.

Hats off to Google for this approach.

10 Beautiful Google Plus Wallpapers You Can’t Ignore

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Abhishek Mandloi

You either hate it or love it; but you can’t escape it. Google Plus is one such application that no one seems to be using but everyone is talking about it. There are serious followers like me who has abandoned Facebook completely and started meaningful conversations on Google Plus. Though Google+ has fewer interactions than facebook, but whenever they happen discussions become deeper and threads become longer. Probably because of more number of marketers and techies and less number of friends on the platform.

In any case, if you are among those who like those who has the passion for new technology and love for new things, we have got some beautiful Google+ wallpapers that you can’t ignore just like best Firefox wallpapers. These wallpapers are picked from all over the internet and I have tried to put attributes from wherever I can. Most surely, they were made under CC license so use them, share them and modify them as per your will. If you are looking for more, you can always use this simple trick to search your desktop size wallpapers from Google Images.

Let us not look at simple and materialistic yet beautiful wallpapers.

initial 3 via rahul964

via source24

via rikulu

via f0xt3r

via rlyoder

via chrisringeisen

via lucifr

Tell us in your comments whether you liked them or not?

Best Ways to Replay YouTube Videos Automatically in a Loop [Repeat Infinitely]

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Abhishek Mandloi

Unfortunately, we do not have an automatic replay button in YouTube to keep video/song repeat in a never ending loop. Every time we have to manually click on that small replay button at the top of the video, which is both inconvenient and uncomfortable. The old trick of appending &loop=1 parameter was the easiest method and worked on all the internet browsers but lately it does not work anymore with the new revamped YouTube.

Let us look at some of the best ways to automatically replay YouTube videos in an infinite loop –

Chrome Extension – Auto Replay for YouTube

Chrome extension to replay youtube videos

This extension adds a checkbox at the bottom of videos, which lets you watch infinitely once you enable it. It also provides options to input the starting and ending seconds between which the video will be replayed. These input boxes also support keyboard shortcuts. Up and down arrows, increase and decrease the values by 1 second whereas pressing shift button along with arrow keys will change values by 5 seconds. Shift+Enter will take the current time of the video as starting point for next play.

Firefox Addon – YouTube Auto Replay

firefox addon for youtube replay

This Firefox add-on does the similar job except with better interface. Choose your starting and ending time or loop the entire video. Simple!

For IE or other browsers – Direct Websites

Sites like yourepeat, tubeencore, tubereplay and youtuberepeater lets you replay videos in any internet browser. All you have to do is replace the youtube word in the URL of the video with any of these sites.

repeater websites

These websites are almost similar with few different features like –

Tubeencore offers a slider from where you can adjust repeat duration and a download link at the bottom of the player.

Tubereplay offers you clean and distraction free UI though other features are not available. In addition, it provides a bookmarklet, which you can directly click while watching YouTube video to replace URL on the fly.

Youtuberepeater offers same functionality with precise position marking capability.

Use any of these methods to enjoy your favourite videos distraction free. If you have more ideas, tell us in our comments.

“Let It Snow” Google’s New Easter Egg

Posted on December 17, 2011 by Abhishek Mandloi

If you search for “let it snow” on Google, you will witness the new holiday easter egg. HTML5 Canvas and JavaScript make some beautiful animation to the page with snowflakes and frost covering up the screen.

google-let-it-snow

Interestingly, you can write on the screen covered with fog with your mouse once it is all frozen. It gives an actual feeling of playing on real windows like on those good old days. The search button turns into a defrost button, which clears all animation. I wish it was replay button. The share button at the top lets you instantly share this easter egg with friends on Google Plus.

Google is also celebrating Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. Search for Hanukkah to se series of light below the Google bar. Well played Google.

This is another of those search tricks like “do a barrel roll” where Google changes its behaviour based of search queries. Last year, Google added seconds to New Year countdown with the ‘I am feeling lucky button’, this year with advancement of technology, we can expect some good animation for the New Year.

Google’s Most Popular Search Terms in 2011 – The Zeitgeist Data

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Abhishek Mandloi

Are you interested in knowing what grabbed world’s attention in 2011? What were the most popular search terms in 2011? Which celebrity or about which movie people wanted to know more? What did the world cared about this year? Google is ready with all these answers in into annual Zeitgeist 2011 data.

There are more than 1 billion searches each day on Google of which 20% are new terms for the day [source]. Analysing this search data, each year Google comes up with Zeitgeist, meaning the spirit of the times which is aggregation of millions of queries Google receives each day. Here is a beautiful and emotional video “We Made it” presenting the summary of the entire released list.

In comparison to other years, this year zeitgeist site is more interactive and aesthetic with CSS3 and HTML5. Even the fastest rising list is more surprising than ever. Rebecca Black with her awful song Friday makes to the top, followed by the most promoted product of the year, the Google Plus. Majority of the list is hijacked by American individuals and only Japanese nuclear plant accident made it to 8th number. Not to surprisingly, 3 spots where captured by Apple and Google secured only one. Some other important snapshots of the released data are:

#. Myspace is the worlds fasted falling search query. This is slightly anticipated because of the fact that Facebook has 800 million users and Google Plus is caching on.

#. Amazon Kindle Fire attracted more attention than iPhone 4S in fasted rising consumer electronics.

#. Facebook is fasted rising search in India leaving behind Cricket World cup 2011.

#. Anna Hazare followed by Poonam Pandey were the fasted rising people for India.

#. Katrina Kaif is still the most searched person from India after Anna Hazare.

#.. Bodyguard left behind Ra.One in Indian Bollywood film industry.

Interested in knowing more? Check out previous year zeitgeist data from here.

Make Google Maps Street View Stop Motion Movie with RCZview

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Abhishek Mandloi

Peugeot in association with Google has launched an interesting application [mashup], which allows you to make street view movies to promote its new car RCZ. As most of you already know, Google Street View lets you see real street maps of the world through 360-degree panoramic angle. Peugeot is leveraging this GSV technology to stimulate its sales.

Nevertheless, these views are discontinuous in nature and do not give a regular flow of images which does not add to any experience. Taking clues from this imperfection, Peugeot came up with web based Google Maps application. With this web application, you can see a continuous video of driving from one location to another location. For providing the RCZ car experience, you will notice a dashboard at the bottom of your browser, which you can hide by clicking on down-arrow link at bottom-right of the page.

Since, Google Street View comprises of images taken at regular interval, the video will be in a form of Stop Motion Movie. To experience GSV Stop Motion Movie, you will have to choose two end points. Unfortunately, you can have a maximum distance of 20 Kilometres between these ends. So, this application fails in making videos between two distance cities. However, within a city, this gives you an experience of driving yourself. Here is a short demo video:

Nonetheless, it is an innovative way to market a new car. We can expect similar applications in the coming future. Enjoy this application until it is there. A brilliant marketing idea! isn’t it?

Related: Some awesome GSV images

Beautiful Google Street View Pictures

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Abhishek Mandloi

Aaron Hobson, a cinemascope artist has come up with beautiful pictures from all around the world collected through Google Street View cars. GSV is a technology that lets you explore streets of the world through 360-degree panoramic angles. This is very helpful for finding your way through the city or for spotting that right place. Google Street View is accessible through both Google Maps and Earth. But no one have ever thought that GSV is capable of collecting artistic beautiful and mysterious pictures from the secluded rural areas.

The beauty of these images is that some professional photographer did not take it but a mechanical eye mounted on GSV cars. First sight to these images makes it doubtful to believe but a closer look at the blurred out faces confirms the fact of these as computer processes images. Aaron has taken trouble to find them and made a collection on his site.

Previously, Google also highlighted some of the famous landmarks on the GSV on this gallery. If you are in mood for some unusual and unique images then you can also see Jon Rafman’s collection on 9-eyes.com. Tell us in your comments if you spot any uncommon sightings. And Indian readers, you need not to be disappointed. Google Street View is coming soon in India.

What does it take to get a job at Google? [Infographic]

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Abhishek Mandloi

Everyone dreams for getting a job at Google. After all, Google is a part of FORTUNE Magazine’s prestigious “100 Best Companies to Work For” [source]. We have already seen YouTube’s awesome office picture. Ever wondered how life at Google is? This YouTube channel showcases inside life of Googlers, the Google engineers.

Click to enlarge this infographic

Jobvine has come up with an interesting infograghic portraying the Google hiring process. Though the data is not comprehensive, it gives a superficial picture of the process. Some interesting facts from this infographic are :

#. Google receives over 1 million resumes per year.

#. Of those, they hire between 0.4 – 0.6% e.i. 4000-6000 professionals.

#. Google used to have up to 29 interviews before offering a position.

#. Google’s hiring process –

Step 1 – Resume screening

Step 2 – Phone call screening

Step 3 – On site interview

Step 4 – Interviewer feedback and opinions from current employees

Step 5 – Hiring Committee checks feedback and resume

Step 6 – Executive review by senior management level

Step 7 – Compensation Committee negotiates salary

Step 8 – Final executive review

Step 9 – Lastly, the offer is given

Most of the times, interview revolve around puzzles and quizzes. Some of the interesting puzzles that are asked in Google interviews and their answers are here.

Want a job at Google? It doesn’t matter if you aren’t an engineer or you do not have extraordinary school and college scores. It is all about talent. Apply officially here.

Tag Archives: Interesting