Docs on the go

Posted by: Zach Lloyd, Software Engineer - Google spreadsheets

I track a lot of work related tasks on spreadsheets that are shared with other engineers, and I often like to know if anyone has updated them while I'm away from my computer. Until now, this was pretty much impossible.

Enter Google Docs for your mobile phone. If you have an iPhone, Blackberry, or Windows Mobile device, you can now point your phone's browser to http://docs.google.com/m to view (no editing yet - sorry), mobile-optimized versions of your docs, spreadsheets, and even presentations (for iPhone only for now). You might have to squint a little, and it's only for English-language users for now, but the information is all there, in your pocket, wherever you are. Now you'll have no excuse not to pick up the milk that was added to that shared grocery list while you were out (huh? You don't have a shared grocery list yet?)

It was a real challenge coming up with useful views, especially of spreadsheets, that would work on the inherently limited screen size and the (um, how to say it nicely) often finicky mobile browsers - but go ahead and give it a shot, and please tell us what you think on the help group.

We've also introduced a few other features... Now you can format spreadsheet cells based on rules. For example, the cell could turn red if it contains a date prior to today. It's a really nice way of quickly seeing the state of a complex or quickly changing sheet - works great for all my overdue tasks! We've also (finally) introduced a way of hiding (and un-hiding) rows and columns. It's always nice to eliminate clutter. Check out all the recent changes on the description on the help group or our new features page.