Find out what they're thinking, easily

Posted by: Chris Pirillo, Gnomedex Conference founder, video blogger and CNN.com Live technology contributor

We're pleased to welcome back Chris Pirillo for another guest post. After discussing his use of Google Docs to coordinate the Gnomedex conference in his last post, he's here again, this time to offer instructions on how to host a live poll using spreadsheets.

The videos I usually record for YouTube are produced live-to-tape. I gather my audience at live.pirillo.com, with an always-on video feed (which is a free service from ustream.tv) and an IRC channel for interactive chat.

I recorded this "live poll" video after discussing a situation with a few of my chat room moderators. We were trying to come up with a way we could all vote anonymously on an issue at hand. Suddenly, it struck me: why can't a Google Docs spreadsheet form do this? I created the poll, set the options I needed... and the vote was underway. We answered our question quickly and easily - all the while, feeling secure in knowing that none of us were influenced by another's answer.

So, if you want this secure feeling, and instructions on creating a live poll with spreadsheets forms, check out the video, right here:

"

Introducing Speaker notes and YouTube videos

Posted by: Dave Young, User Experience Designer

The last few months have been exciting for the presentations team. In January, we added shapes and "Save as PDF" and just recently launched "Save as PPT". Today, we have two new features to tell you about.

1. Speaker notes for your presentations
Seasoned presenters keep their slides simple and use slides to help illustrate their points, not to present all of their information. They jot down their talking points, examples, and supporting evidence in speaker notes. To help you do do this in Docs, we've added speaker notes. You can print these speaker notes in advance, or pop them up in a separate window when you present.

2. Inserting YouTube videos into slides
Videos can help you make a point, command the attention of your audience, or even add humor to your presentation. Now in presentations, you can insert one or more YouTube videos onto your slides and play the videos while you're presenting.

Here's an embedded presentation that shows this feature:

View your presentations and spreadsheets offline, too

Posted by: Andrew Chang, Marketing Manager

Our initial offline rollout is complete. Done. Finito. You should now see an "Offline" link in the upper right hand corner of Google Docs.

When we first announced offline access several weeks ago, it was limited to viewing and editing word processing documents. Now, we've added view-only offline access to spreadsheets and presentations as well.

You won't need to worry about an unreliable internet connection as you walk up to the front of the room to give your next presentation. Just click on your Google Docs desktop icon and know that your presentations and spreadsheets will be stored on your computer, at your fingertips.

We still only support English language access, and Google Apps users shouldn't expect to see offline Docs unless their domain admins have opted in to getting this new feature. To learn more about offline access, check out our Help Center.


Update: Corrected a misspelling.

Google Docs makes being green easy

Posted by: Matt Doublestein, teacher and earth-friendly Google Docs user

Recently, we talked to Matt Doublestein, who told us about how Google Docs helped him save huge amounts of paper, and go effortlessly green. We were impressed, and figured that there's no better way to celebrate Earth Day than by sharing his inspiring story.

I am a middle school band director. I teach nearly 300 students each day
and have communication with them and their parents - nearly 1000 people in
all.

With Google Docs, my program has reduced its paper use by as much as 90%.

Instead of using hard copies, thousands of times over, we can now set everything up to work online with documents, forms, and spreadsheets. Previously parents had multiple pieces of paper for certain functions. We can now eliminate these by using separate online forms. Rather than going through so many pieces of paper, parents can now just click the next link.

Most recently we have used spreadsheets forms to collect orders for an annual project, a professionally recorded CD of our students' performances, available for purchase. Our greatest goal is simply to pay for the cost of producing the CD, but we do also hope to raise additional funds to support music activities for families that cannot afford them on their own (instrument rental, equipment purchases, cost of band trips, etc.). Parents can now log onto the band website and enter their orders into the online form which dumps right into the Google Docs spreadsheet.

In the past I would spend hours sitting at the computer entering information from paper forms that kids brought in order to keep proper record of orders and money (as required by the state). Now I only have to match check numbers and amounts to what is already entered in the spreadsheet.

Perhaps the best part is that I can share the document with our treasurer and my team teacher so that we can collaborate and error check. Previously, I would have to print off hard copies of everything and then go through it line by line to proof. Now, since I have my spreadsheet formulas in place to do all the math for me, it is a simple matter of sharing the doc with another person to examine areas of concern.

Google Docs "cuts" both ways -- it cuts many hours off of the time needed to compile this information, and it cuts reams of paper from our materials cost.

Inspired by Matt's story? Tell us how you're celebrating Earth Day, with Google Docs or otherwise, on Google's Earth Day '08 site.

Organizing conferences with Google Docs

Posted by: Chris Pirillo, Gnomedex Conference founder, video blogger and CNN.com Live technology contributor

We're happy to welcome Chris Pirillo as a guest blogger to the Google Docs blog and a featured contributor to the Google Docs Community Channel on YouTube.

I founded, and host, an annual conference called Gnomedex, which brings together tech enthusiasts from across the globe, highlighting present and future trends as we see them taking shape. My wife/business partner helps produce it, and we have just hired an event manager for help in coordinating efforts.

As an integral part of getting an event of this size off the ground, I have a spreadsheet to store conference contacts and budget calculations. With Google Docs, I have been able to share this important info with various associates whenever they need the information. It's much easier than having to look up the accounts one by one, then pasting them over and over again into an email or instant message -- where the information would remain disorganized in any event (no pun intended). Also, keeping them stored online via Google Docs allows me to keep my hard drive cleaner, and not worry about the need to back them up so they are never lost (which would be disastrous when organizing a conference of this size).

Never having to ask if I'm looking at the latest version of a document or spreadsheet in the middle of the inevitable fire drills that accompany organizing Gnomedex? It's a dream come true. I don't have to worry about saving something, backing it up, copying it to multiple machines or anything of that nature. I simply create, save and be done with it.

Sharing achievements cross-country

Posted by: Nick Hodgson, Student, Massey University, New Zealand


We welcome Nick Hodgson: creative Google Docs user, and member of the AIESEC support team at Massey University.

My name is Nick Hodgson and I use Google Docs as a part of AIESEC, a student-run non-profit that develops leadership skills by running projects in which students and businesses from around the world collaborate.

Both my executive team here in Palmerston North, New Zealand, and our national leadership team (based all over the country) use Google Docs to update on our progress each week. Our team has approximately 20 members across the country whom we share the updates with, as well as the contact list for our Local Chapters.

We each update three categories in a shared document weekly: Achieved, Not Achieved, Priorities (goals set that week that are for the next week).

Here's how we create our updates:

1. We create a separate document for each member of the team.
2. Each document is shared with all other members.
   
3. At the top of each document, we enter the week-ending date, along with the categories Achieved, Not Achieved, and Priorities.
4. We updated our progress in these three categories throughout the week.
5. At the end of the week, we each just add a horizontal line (page separator) to the top of the document and start over, again entering the week-ending date, and the three categories.
   
6. Repeat, repeat and repeat :)

Here's a sample of a recent week to see how simple and easy it really is.

As you see, it may not be fancy, but it sure is functional. Our entire National Leadership team can easily view what is happening around the country, with everything all in one place. Doing it this way makes it very easy to do quarterly summaries of activity. I know at the end of my term I'm going to find this a lot easier to look at my performance over the year.

Posting to a blog is a bit too easy

Posted by: Andrew Chang, Marketing Manager

Oops. As many of you have noticed, yesterday I accidentally posted my personal to-do list onto this blog. I realized my mistake only when a fellow Googler IM'd me: "any idea what's going on here? Just checked the blog, and there's a new (inexplicable) post." Soon after, I unpublished the post - because I'm assuming that you, our dear readers, aren't too interested in reading about my weekend activities (cleaning my shelves) and that I'm shopping for tofu and one large cabbage this weekend.

Here's what happened: I was testing out a feature that allows you to create and edit blog posts in Docs and publish them directly to your blog. I picked a to-do list that my wife and I collaborate on for our weekend chores and grocery list. Then I clicked "Share" and "Publish as a web page" (thinking that I'd be posting to a test blog of mine). One button click later, my list was out there for the world to see. I've since changed my settings to not post to this blog.

Embarrassed... yes. Next time I'll try to be a little less trigger-happy with the 'Post to blog' button.



Update: Added link to the Google Docs Help Center describing how to post to your blog.

Coffee and statistics

Posted by: Meredith Whittaker, Program Manager

We recently came across Jon Lin, a Canadian out of Alberta who puts Google Docs spreadsheets to work managing and cataloging his commitment to coffee, winning and statistics (great combo, no?).

Says Jon, "I'm currently using Google Documents to manage my Tim Hortons [a Canadian coffee chain] Roll Up The Rim statistics for this year. Roll Up The Rim is a contest where customers purchase coffees and then roll up the cup rim to see whether or not they have won a prize.

"Google Spreadsheets has become my pseudo web-publishing tool. I update my statistics online in an entry sheet, and then those changes flow to a publicly viewable spreadsheet that I've embedded in my page."

Two simple, and totally justifiable reasons drive his interest in the contest: "In addition to being able to fulfill my daily caffeine intake, I got to watch my own purchases and winnings get tracked. Its like watching a statistical experiment progress daily."

Not to be greedy, Jon shares the fruits of this commitment on his blog. Note the tidy spreadsheets charts, the embedded spreadsheet, and the photos of many, many coffee cups :)

The simplicity and effectiveness of Jon's methods really impressed us.

Obviously, Jon's creative use of spreadsheets could be applied to much more than coffee contest tracking. Anyone could use his method to track and neatly display the statistical conclusions of events over time.

So what do you want to track and share?

• Your running time?
  
• The length of your daily train ride?
  
• The monthly stats from your global sales team?

Whatever it is, if you're interested in doing something similar, Jon has been kind enough to provide us with some detailed instructions, linked on this document.

Save your presentations to PowerPoint

Posted by: Andrew Chang, Marketing Manager

We believe you should be able to access your presentations however and whenever you want, in whatever format you need. In that vein, today we launched "Save as PPT" which allows you to save presentations as PowerPoint. We now support PDF, PPT, and basic text as export filetypes.



Of course, you can also share your presentations in several other ways: invite collaborators and viewers within Docs, publish your presentation (and share the unique URL to the presentation), or even embed your presentation on a separate website or blog. Have fun sharing!

Social spreadsheeting

Posted by: Meredith Whittaker, Program Manager

All of us who are Google employees use Google Docs at work, and I'm no exception. I really can't remember how I used to cope. (Email multiple copies of the same document? How old-fashioned!)

Apart from work, I'm here to tell you about Google Docs in my personal life. It all started when I moved to New York from California a few months ago. I missed my friends, and I was thinking about ways (short of hopping on a plane) to connect with them. Like me, my friends Geraldine and Latas are huge music nerds (seriously, the cost of shipping our records is the biggest expense in any move). Then there's Justine, whom I met in a Berkeley film class; she always has great movie recommendations. And Cristin, a native New Yorker, has an educated opinion on nearly every restaurant in town.

What do my friends' tastes have to do with Google Docs? Well, since I missed my friends, I decided to set up a spreadsheet. I called it "The Check Out Zone" (As in, things we recommend the others check out) and shared it between us, with everyone having full edit access. Separate sheets were set up for movies, music, books and restaurants, and we all began entering our recommendations and comments for each. Pretty soon, looking for new updates was a daily activity for each of us.

Recently, I found myself on a crowded bookstore on Broadway, trying to find a gift for a friend's birthday. Instead of succumbing to the overwhelming selection, and walking away with another biography of a founding father, I pulled out my BlackBerry, accessed Google Docs, and checked the list. Cristin had recommended stories by Chekhov. Justine had entered Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, and Geraldine, true to form, suggested a Sam Cooke biography.

I left with the Amis and Chekhov for me and the Sam Cooke bio for my friend. Not only did I get in and out in record time, but, best of all, I felt close to my friends, even though we're miles apart.

Want to see? Here's our spreadsheet.

Reaching New Heights With Google Airlines

Posted by: Neil Fraser, Flight Dynamics Engineer

You already know that Google Docs facilitates collaboration in many ways: Share a document via email, publish to the web, post to a blog. Now the latest addition is Google Airlines: make your document fly! On April 1st we released a new option to print a template, which, when folded, truly gives your document wings.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch was the first to notice. He suggested posting videos of your airplanes to YouTube. And you did! We were surprised at the variety of airplanes you produced. Some people followed the instructions closely, others were more ... creative. (Aerodynamics note: the most stable airplanes are ones with a positive dihedral.)

Take a look at the varied results, hosted on the Google Docs Community Channel:

Introducing 'Google Docs Guide 2'

Posted by: Regina Dinneen, Consumer User Operations

Hello faithful Google Docs Blog readers -- I'm Regina, and I work in our Mountain View, California office. I'm a San Francisco native, and when I'm not at work, you can find me playing soccer (or "football") 2-3 nights per week. Another passion is travel and learning about new cultures: I've had the opportunity to live in Japan, South Africa and Ireland. And of course I'm always pushing my friends to give Google Docs a test drive. Recently I got a few of them to try out the new forms feature (big win!).

I also post under the ID "Google Docs Guide 2" on the Google Docs Help Group, mostly to let you know when specific issues have been fixed or when new features have been added. Some days you may not see any posts for me, but I'm always watching the action. My main goal is to let you help one another. I'll only jump in when an issue can't be fixed with normal troubleshooting steps. I've found that sometimes you can answer the "How do I" questions better than I can.

Here are two examples of how your feedback has helped improve Google Docs:

1) Issue: Autosum in Danish and Swedish locales
Quite a few people reported a bug with Autosum in spreadsheets. We told our engineering team, and they fixed it. Without the multiple reports from the group, we might have missed this one. (Thanks, MacLeod, ahab and Gill!)

2) Issue: Email notifications about changes to your spreadsheet
This feature was listed on our suggestions form and in the group where you can suggest new features and vote on what you think we should work on next. Many people voted for email notifications, and it recently became a reality.

Please also be aware that I often update our known issues page and suggestions page with topics I've seen from the group. So if you aren't already a member of the Help Group, join today and let your voice be heard!

Lights, camera, Google Docs and YOU

Posted by: Meredith Whittaker, Program Manager

Since first launching Google Docs, we've heard from many people who are passionate about using it, and have created their own resources, from help videos to user guides, to help others work smarter with Google Docs.

And now, we're unveiling the Google Docs Community Channel on YouTube to showcase all the great videos you create about how to use Google Docs. What you'll see here is skill and passion expressed in video.

Foreign language teacher Stephan Rinke put together an introduction to Google Docs for his colleagues; "Paintbuoy" uploaded step-by-step visual instructions on creating forms (with a soundtrack!); and Kara and Will from the Maynard Institute joke around as they describe using Google Docs as a content management system.

Each of these is produced by someone who wants to help more of you learn about Google Docs. We encourage you to get involved in the Google Docs Community Channel to share your ideas and your content, too. Contributing a video is easy: First, break out your cameras, your screencapture software and your creativity. When you're done, upload your video and get in touch using the "message" function in the channel (or simply enter your information in this form). Tell us the URL of your video. We'll feature any piece that's appropriate, and highlight our favorites regularly right here, on our blog.