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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
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?

Convert PDF into MS Word format using Google Docs

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Over the internet, you will find many free services that transforms PDF’s to MS Word format but they all have some or the other problems and limitaions. I wouldn’t recommend using these free services because

#. They create a copy of your personal document, which they might use against you. Official files and private documents should never be uploaded anywhere.

#. They ask you to download free/paid conversion software that might actually be malware or bloatware.

#. They ask your email address so that later they can send you spam mails.

Moreover, some of them have size restrictions and does not allow multiple conversions. In addition, their accuracy and speed to convert is doubtful.

Why I am recommending Google docs to convert PDF into MS word format? Because

#. Its efficient. I have been able to convert locked and protected files that were refused by other programs.

#. Google Docs proprietary OCR technology lets you extract text and formatting from images and PDF’s. What’s more? It is available in 34 languages.

#. No software installation is required. Anyone can do it instantly!

#. You can easily sync Google Docs with your desktop local files.

Follow these simple steps to convert and extract text from PDFs:

1) Go to Google Docs and start uploading your PDF.

2) Select the second option to make a Google Docs Format of your file. You must select “Convert text from PDF and image files to Google documents”.

google docs upload file

3) Once file is uploaded, navigate back to your Home page where all the files are listed. By default your file will be at the top.

4) Right click on your file and select the option to download.

gdocs download

5) Choose the format in which you want to convert your file (Microsoft Office Word, HTML, Open Document, PDF, Rich Text RTF or plain text).

gdocs convert into docs

The only limitation is that you can convert only the files that are maximum 2MB in size. However, you can upload files upto 10GB in Google Docs. If your PDF file is really big, I would recommend Zamzar which is an excellent online conversation service for many types of files and is quite safe to use.

Read or Embed Documents Online with Google Docs Viewer

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google docs viewerConsider the scenario when you want to display MS office excel file in a web page or in your blog post. Another case could be when you want to read an office document but you don’t have the required software for it. Google comes to rescue you in such situations by offering an online viewer, which can also be easily embedded to view popular file formats in your browser.

Many people who browse the Internet have come across files that cannot be viewed within the browser of their choice. For instance, in browsers like Chrome, files such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint cannot open in the browser and have to be downloaded and viewed using the respective applications. This can become tedious since downloading each file can clutter one’s storage space. Also, some users may not have the necessary application to view the file such as when trying to view it on a public or work computer.

Well, you can do away with the frustration with the Google Docs Viewer. The viewer allows you to view various popular file types without having to download the files. It has been mainly used to display one’s documents to users without Google Docs accounts with a link. However, the Google Docs Viewer has been expanded to support over 15 different file types, listed below:

• Microsoft Word (.DOC and .DOCX)
• Microsoft Excel (.XLS and .XLSX)
• Microsoft PowerPoint (.PPT and .PPTX)
• Adobe Portable Document Format (.PDF)
• Adobe Photoshop (.PSD)
• Adobe Illustrator (.AI)
• Apple Pages (.PAGES)
• Tagged Image File Format (.TIFF)
• Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG)
• TrueType (.TTF)
• XML Paper Specification (.XPS)
• PostScript (.EPS, .PS)
• Autodesk AutoCad (.DXF)
• Archive file types (.ZIP and .RAR)

The viewer is an excellent solution for those moments when the associated software such as Microsoft Office and WinRAR are not available. It also makes browsing through supported online files a breeze with its quick-viewing capabilities. This works in conjunction with Gmail for viewing of email attachments with a “View” link adjacent to them.

To use the viewer, simply go to viewer’s website and generate a viewable link of the file using it’s URL. You can also download the browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that automatically generates the viewable link in another tab. One caveat is that it doesn’t work for files that require a login to view in which the domain will have to be whitelisted in the extension’s options in order to download them.

To embed the viewer in any web page you should append the path of the document to http://docs.google.com/viewer? . For example, I have used the following code to display this .doc document in this page –

<iframe src=”http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://img.gtricks.com/2012/02/Abhishek-Mandloi-MICA-Resume.doc&embedded=true” style=”width:560px; height:500px;” frameborder=”0″></iframe>

Note: Another good alternative service which does the same job but offers less formats is Zoho Viewer.

Sync and Backup Google Docs with Your Desktop Files

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If you are one among those, who regularly uses Google Docs then you must have felt the need of offline local folder that will remain in constant sync with your Gdoc Account. Just like the dropbox where you can keep all your MS documents, PDF’s, MP3′s and other files in cloud and in your desktop with real time synchronisation. Not much long ago, we have covered GDocsDrive, which transforms your Google account into a personal drive for making online backups. However, it did not provided real time synchronization and it was not free.

insync logoIntroducing InSync – a free and a small software which keep files on your desktop in sync with GDocs. Just like dropbox, this useful software provides cloud based storage so that you can easily edit, update and share files between Google Docs and your computer.

in sync google docs and local folder

Soon after installing, the program asks for your Google credentials. The program now makes a new ‘insync’ folder on your machine, within which Google account name folders are created. After few seconds, all your Gdocs files gets downloaded to this folder. Now the folder and the account are in complete sync and any change made to files will get reflected in all the places. It’s simple! Copy a new file to that local folder; it gets automatically uploaded to cloud. Make a change offline; file at Gdoc will get changed. Much like dropbox with additional benefits like –

#. Sync multiple account with multiple machines. Any local/offline change gets reflected on online version.

#. You get 1GB free storage from Google. You can purchase more at 1/8th price of Dropbox (20GB at just 5USD per year) from https://google .com/accounts/PurchaseStorage

#. Easy sharing options that enables effective Google Docs collaboration.

#. Offline access or tension free automatic backups.

#. Desktop notifications for any change.

Syncplicity is another useful software to backup and sync Google Docs with Office documents on your computer. This software works in the same way as Insync and lets you edit your GDocs document offline using Microsoft word and then later sync changes with original docs. Though this offers more features than Insyc, There is a major disadvantage with this application – its complex to use. If you can understand detailed stuff, then Syncplicity should be your preferred choice. Here is a quick demo video –

Lastly, for the Google Apps users, we have Memeo. With natively developed GDrive technology you can upload, sync, edit and share any document on Google Docs, even when you are offline on multiple devices. Check their video below –

Tell us in your comments on how these applications helped you in your daily lives.

Find Apartments for Rent with Google Maps

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[USA Only]

Padmapper is a useful Google Map mashup, which helps you find apartments on rents from Apartments.com, Oodle, Kijiji and Craigslist apartment’s lists. Fundamentally, it is another apartment search engine but with the power of Google Maps that makes exploring easy and convenient.

padmapper application

Just enter city, address, or zip of a place where you want to find apartments, full leases, sublets or room/shares and hit enter. Alternatively, you have option to change rent range, bedroom and bathroom numbers while doing search. Now, the Padmapper application will plot all the available apartments on a big map with each marker representing a rent ad and letting you choose what you want. You can then see the rental details, the building images and nearby area from Street View tab from the balloons of the marker. The below video explains its functionality.

Alternatively, you can use other mashup services that work in the similar fashion. Some of them are:

#. http://www.mapskrieg.com/

#. http://www.nearlots.com/

#. http://www.HotPads.com/

#. http://www.housingmaps.com/

However, among all of them Padmapper is the best not only because it is free but it offers wide variety of features. It picks up listings from various sources, can tell commute time, has iPhone and Android apps and advance filters for precise searching and much more.

Go ahead. Use this awesome mashup for finding apartments for rent or even for adding your own apartment.

Note: Padmapper displays only 200 markers at a time on a screen while there may be more rentals available in that area. Therefore, do not forget to zoom in or use filters to search just that perfect apartment.

How to Automatically Sync Gmail Contacts with Outlook

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Many of us use Outlook and Gmail at the same time for professional and personal work connect. Alternatively, some of us use IMAP or POP so that we can get Outlook like convenience on Gmail. But in both of these cases, managing similar contacts is a common problem. A decent solution to this problem is either way synchronisation of contacts between these two mail clients.

PPPIndia is one such Indian company that understood this problem pretty well and came up with excellent automatic contacts synchronization tool. This software is entirely free and you can download it from here. It works for all Gmail accounts as well as Google Apps account. On the Outlook side, it supports 2003, 2007 and 2010 versions.

With this freeware, you can either synchronize Gmail to Outlook contacts, which put all your Gmail contacts in Outlook [there could be additional Outlook contacts as well] or do an Outlook to Gmail sync, which moves all your outlook contacts to Gmail.

Sync Configuration

Fetching contacts - The tool is working

After you download this automatic sync tool, you will have to enter your Gmail credentials into the program. Then you will have to select the outlook folder or account with which you want to synchronize your contacts. Now choose any of the two options and select synchronize. The tool will now take contacts from both the clients and match them for similarity. Once the program starts running, you can minimize it in the system tray and it will automatically synchronise all the contacts. However, the empty ones (without any last name or with black email address field) will be left unaltered. You will have to manually deal with them. The program will keep you notified with pop-up balloon messages about errors or successes. The whole process may take a while (up to 10 minutes) depending on the size of your contact list.

Use this tool once in a while if you want an organized contact list between devices. Another advantage of this tool is that you can use all your Gmail contacts even offline or save them as a backup.

Note: Another less popular tool to two way Google Contacts and Outlook sync is Gcontactsynch. This is open source hence more trustworthy but doent not offer automatic synchronization facility.

Xobni Smartr vs Rapportive for Gmail

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When you receive a common mail, which has other known/unknown respondents, it becomes difficult to know who is who and does what. Specially, in organisations and institutes this becomes a serious problem, as we may not know everyone. Gmail’s people widget provides quick relief at such point. It tells us about the associated people and their position in the organization that are present in the mail conversation. However, Gmail’s People widget is very basic and lacks necessary features.

Inbox contacts with full information

Enter Smartr (Beta) from the San Francisco based start-up company, Xobni (“inbox” spelled backwards). The company has already proved its salt in email and relationship management. Almost everyone using outlook is familiar with its blue sidebar, which brings variety of features along with it. On the same lines, Xobni has released Smartr that gives you rich information on the right sidebar of your inbox. It instantly tells you about person’s job title, company details, and updates from LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Simple information on Gmail right sidebar

Another option, possibly a better one is Rapportive, which does nearly a similar job. It has first mover advantage and it was the original tool to hide Gmail ads and provide useful information instead.

Smartr vs Rapportive -

#. Smartr has well organised and better interface for contact info. Rapportive has clean and minimal interface.

#. Smartr helps you to find that right contact effortlessly while composing a mail. It also has graphical stats and finding common contacts feature.

#. Rapportive has raplets through which you can customize gmail with your favourite apps and CRM tools.

#. Xobni is also available for Android, Blackberry and iPhone.

#. You don’t need a Rapportive account but just authorize Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn to use its power. For Xobni Smartr, you will have to make a separate account.

#. Smartr is still in beta. Rapporative is a fully functional stable product.

#. Rapportive integrates with Gmail People Widget. Smartr replaces this.

Analyse for yourself. You can choose only one of them, as both cannot be installed side-by-side. Smartr is the new way for mailbox productivity, enhancing your work style and making your inbox more intelligent. Rapportive, with its customization capability is carving a new way for the future inbox.

Note: Both, Xobni Smart and Rapportive are browser based third party addons and works only for Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

5 Best Alternatives for Google Desktop Search

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Google Desktop is text search software, which allows you to easily search files, emails, pictures and MP3′s on your computer. This is pretty useful tool which indexes files by their name or content and lets you launch them with few keystrokes. In addition, it provides other handy gadgets such us weather information, calendar, Gmail, news, to-do list and much more. Unfortunately, Google announced that it would close Desktop search along with other products in coming months.

Google Desktop has amazing features, but since it is getting discontinued let us look at 5 best alternatives to it:

1) Windows Search

Windows Desktop Search

Yes, you heard it right! New Windows Search is not slow and lethargic as it used to be. They have drastically improved their indexing capabilities. You can download the all-new search component from this page (for XP, Vista and Server editions). Windows 7 and 8 include this by default but you will have to include other drives or folder locations manually for indexing from the control panel.

2) Everything Search Engine

Everything Search

Everything is a lightweight and handy tool that locates file and folders by their name. It differs from windows search in two ways: one, it is ultra-fast and does not hog system resources. Two, it displays every file and folder as soon as it starts. The only problem with this freeware is that it does not search file contents, but only file and folder names.

3) Copernic Desktop Search
copernic desktop search

Click the image above to see a larger version

Copernic Desktop Search software lets you quickly find over 150 file types including emails and preview them instantly with a single click. According to them, they are ranked number 1 in desktop search tests. The only problem is that Copernic is paid software and the free version has advertisements in it. That is the reason it is ranked third in our list. If you are comfortable with little ads, then it is one of the best alternatives to Google Desktop Search.

4) Find And Run Robot (FARR)

FARR

FARR claims to be “The Ultimate Program for Keyboard Maniacs”. This portable software (means you can even run it from USB drive) finds programs and files as soon as you start typing from the search box. You can also send emails, run web searches, manipulate files and much more with your keyboard and FARR.

5) Agent Ransack
Agent Ransack

Click the image above to see a larger version

Agent Ransack is a powerful search tool that gives you immediate results for almost all the popular formats. It provides variety of options for searching a file like regular expression, dates (created, modified and last accessed) and content. It also allows you to quickly browse results without opening separate files. If you have tons of documents and text files, then this is the perfect tool for you.

Note: Check out all the desktop search engines from this wiki page.

How to Get Outlook Style Gmail for Enhanced productivity

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We all have to agree that the MS Outlook has more features and is more productive than Gmail. One of such time saving features: Mail preview, is a very useful feature and can really be advantageous when used with keyboard shortcuts. You can also use this in order to maintain uniformity between work email that uses desktop outlook and personal web email.

gmail in outlook style

Click the image above to see a larger version



Needless to say, Outlook style Gmail will enhance productivity and also will make you stand apart from crowd. Thanks to Gmail engineers that recently introduced this feature. Let us see how to enable mail preview in Gmail:

Step 1: Go to Gmail Labs from mail settings.

Step 2: Search for Preview Pane in labs.

Step 3: Enable it and save settings.

Step 4: Go back to inbox and look for split icon at top-right corner of mail list as shown in below picture.

split icon

Click the image above to see a larger version

Step 5: Select your preference -> Horizontal Split or Vertical Split and you are done.

The specific outlook style keeps mails on one side and content on another. Use this technique along with keyboard shortcuts for a drastic improvement in work speed and productivity. Here are few of my favourite shortcut keys that I use regularly while dealing with emails:

c to compose a new mail
f to forward the selected mail
r to reply
j and k for backward and forward navigation between mails
# to delete selected conversation
e to archive the mail

So, effectively putting in simple terms:
Preview Pane + Keyboard shortcuts = killer productivity.
Try the combination to experience yourself and let us know in comments.

Note:
1) There is a 3 seconds delay in automatic marking a mail as read after previewing it. You can change this time from general tabs of mail settings.
2) This feature works really well with high-resolution screens.
3) You can discover more of these shortcuts by pressing ? key while in inbox or from this official support page.

Google Plus Desktop Gadget for Windows 7: G+7

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gp7 google plus gadgetG+7 is a beautiful desktop gadget from Kalamon Softwares for Windows 7 which constantly provides you information from your Google Plus home stream. It saves you the effort for opening the browser each time to check for friend’s updates.

G+7 offers multiple option for viewing Google+ message feeds. Once you install it from the official Microsoft Gadget Gallery, you will have to login into your Google account from the Options. From the Options menu you can also change size, position and opacity of the gadget.






This gadget also offers you to change the update frequency of the home stream updates. We recommend not keeping it too low else, it will consume majority of resources. Double clicking on any friend update will open it in new window with more details and comments. Additionally you can click View Online to view it in a browser window (as shown in below picture).


gp7-expanded

G+7 is a nifty tool, useful for people on the move as it saves the effort of opening new browser window. However, it may also prove to be a distraction in your routine work. The Choice is yours, of course based on your needs.

Install from here