A faster way to get to Docs and other Google Apps with Pack

We've invited Julie Farago and Mike Smith, Product Managers for Google Pack, to tell you about recent updates to Pack that might interest those of you who regularly use Docs and our other apps.

We think that you should be able to access your favorite web apps with the same ease and simplicity as desktop applications. Today, we took one small step in that direction.

 

As an option in Google Pack, you can now quickly install desktop access points to Docs, Calendar, and Gmail. These access points include placement in the start menu, shortcuts on the desktop, and a presence in add/remove programs. If you use Gmail, you can also make it your default mail handler. When you launch the apps from these access points, they run in a streamlined browser window via Google Chrome. You may have tried to customize this on your own but now it's even easier.

Try it out and tell us what you think by installing it from Pack.

Posted by: Julie Farago and Mike Smith, Product Managers for Google Pack

Update: Thanks to so many people who have tried and installed Google Apps from Google Pack and given us feedback. We wanted to let you know that we've heard you loud and clear that you'd like Pack to support these installable Google Apps not just for the standard Gmail, Docs and Calendar, but also for the flavor of Google Apps that businesses, schools and organizations use. We can't comment on future development here, but please do stay tuned--we're working on it.

Data Validation gives you more control over your spreadsheets

Have you ever wanted to suggest or control what people enter in your spreadsheet? Now you can, using the new data validation feature in spreadsheets. Once a range of cells are selected, the feature can be accessed in Tools > Data Validation and lets you create rules for numbers, text, and dates. Let's see how it works.

Say you're hosting a party, you've invited your friends, and want them to fill out a spreadsheet to indicate the best way to contact them, how many guests they're planning to bring, and what flavor of ice cream they prefer to eat.

First, select a range of cells and use Tools > Data Validation to set up the rules. You can set up a rule to make sure that only valid email addresses are allowed so you know the best way to contact your friends.

In this case, you can prevent users from entering in data (an invalid email) that breaks the rule.

Next, you may want to suggest that your friends don't invite more than two additional guests, each. Another rule will prompt this suggestion for a different range of cells.

Notice that the spreadsheet prevents you from entering a number greater than 2:
Finally, if you're a chocolate lover, you may want to kindly suggest to your friends that their favorite choice of ice cream really is chocolate. Another data validation rule for text should do the trick.

For this rule, your friends will see an ice cream flavor suggestion but they'll still be allowed to enter different flavors.

Of course, there are other uses cases of data validation rules, like making sure your friends are entering their ideal dates for the party within a certain specified time range. Have fun planning your next party (with chocolate ice cream)!

A few notes on this new feature:

• If data validation is applied to cells containing data, rules won't be applied until the data is modified.
• Only one validation rule can be applied to each cell.
  

Posted by: Radhika Lakshmanan, Software Engineer

Add, edit, sort, and filter: Improved mobile access to spreadsheets

Over a year ago, we enabled view-only access to docs from mobile devices. This has come in handy for me because I use Google Docs spreadsheets to keep track of a lot of nerdy and not-so-nerdy things in my life. I've often found myself wanting to access my spreadsheet data on the go, when I'm not near a computer.

Today, I'm happy to announce that we've made mobile access even better by adding new capabilities with List View for spreadsheets. You can quickly view, edit, sort, and filter your spreadsheets on a variety of mobile devices including Android-powered devices like the T-Mobile G1, the iPhone and iPod touch, and the Nokia S60.

With Valentine's Day coming soon, I'd like to share two ways that List View is helping me to play cupid.

Last week I was trying to find some Broadway tickets to surprise my boyfriend for Valentine's Day. A friend of mine at a ticket agency publishes an online spreadsheet with a list of last-minute available tickets. From my iPhone, I was able to quickly access his spreadsheet to see upcoming shows:

 

Mobile List View showing all shows (sorted by "Show" column).  Shown in portrait mode on the iPhone.

From here, in just a few taps, I was able to filter down to tickets available on Valentine's Day:

Choosing a filter for the "Date" column.

I could see only the rows that matched my filter, and I eventually found a show that I knew that my boyfriend would like: "Billy Elliot The Musical" at 7pm with orchestra seats.

All rows matching the "2/14/2009" filter.

With tickets purchased, and a restaurant booked, I'm nearly set. Here's another example of how this enhanced mobile access will come in handy tomorrow night. A few of my friends and I like to think of ourselves as wine aficionados. We rate wines that we like (and don't like) in a wine diary and it's kept in a shared spreadsheet. On the T-Mobile G1 or the iPhone home screens, we all have shortcuts which link directly to the spreadsheet.

Mobile List View showing all wines. Landscape mode on the G1.   

While at a restaurant or wine bar, we can see each others' recommendations and note our likes and dislikes.  Here I can view and add a new entry:  

Mobile List View "Add row" widget on the G1.

Tomorrow night, mobile access to this spreadsheet will come in handy when presented with a big wine list, with my significant other looking at me across the table waiting for me to pick a wine (already).

Try this out by pointing your mobile device's browser to m.google.com/docs. And if you use Google Apps, go to docs.google.com/a/your-domain. This feature is available in all 38 languages that are supported in Google Docs spreadsheets.

Posted by: Eric Bogs, User Interface Software Engineer

Students tell their stories

You might remember reading about our visits to college campuses when we hit the streets and headed "App to School" in a retro bio-fuel bus to visit ten universities across the US using Google Apps. Today, Miriam Schneider is here to tell us more about the students' experiences with Google Apps, as well as the Google Students Blog.

One of our main goals of this trip was to hear from the technology experts themselves -- the students -- about how they were using Google tools, like Docs, in interesting and productive ways to be more effective on and off campus. Luckily we had a video camera along for the ride, and we filmed a bunch of students telling their stories.

Every week we'll be sharing a new video on the Google Students blog, so you can hear new stories every week from the students themselves about how they're using Google Docs in productive and interesting ways. If you want to make sure you catch all the latest videos, and stay up to date about other news and tips for students, you can subscribe to the student blog.

Here's one video from a student who uses Docs and Forms to bring concerts to his campus:



Check out our playlist to see all the videos about Docs and other Google products that are helping students be more effective on and off campus.

Posted by: Miriam Schneider, Associate Product Marketing Manager & Editor-in-Chief, Google Students Blog

Preview before you print (and even more offline languages)

I rarely print out my documents on Google Docs. Most of the time I'm sharing a document with others for purely online consumption. But there are occasions when I need to print, like I had to do today to turn in a hard copy of my homework for the computer science class I'm taking this quarter. (The paperless class remains an urban legend!) When you have to print, it's super helpful to see a quick preview to make sure everything looks as expected. Starting today, you can do this by using the "Print Preview" feature in the "File" menu.

Those of you who have uploaded PDFs to Google Docs or have viewed PDFs in Gmail may notice that the new "Print Preview" feature is powered by the same fast and high fidelity PDF viewer. You can then preview the pages of your document, edit your print settings (if needed), and print. 

In other news, we've just enabled offline access in 9 more languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Thai, and Vietnamese. Why the brief delay? We wanted to do some final testing on those languages before making them available to everyone. To get your Google Docs offline, I highly recommend that you start by reading this user group post.

Posted by: Jen Mazzon, Senior Product Manager

Meeting your New Year's resolutions? We'd like to hear from you

About a month ago, people around the world made a New Year's resolution. Common resolutions include losing weight, eating right, managing debt, or saving money. Since we launched our templates gallery last year, I've been closely watching the number of people using each category of templates in the gallery.

Since the beginning of the new year, usage of personal finance templates has jumped more than 40 percent over normal usage. Resumes templates have also been popular -- understandably so -- given the state of the worldwide economy.

You are busy creating budgets, getting fit, and updating your resumes.

And I'd like to hear how it's going...

• Are you sharing a workout spreadsheet with your training buddies to track progress as a group?
• Have you created a budget to get your financial house in order?
• Have you made progress in your job search by creating an online resume or CV?
  

Willing to share your story (and possibly be featured on this blog)? Tell us your story. I look forward to reading all of them.

Posted by: Andrew Chang, Marketing Manager

Offline access available in 29 additional languages

Last week, the Gmail team launched Offline Gmail, an experimental feature that gives you access to email when you don't have a stable Internet connection or an Internet connection at all.

Back in March 2008, we launched offline access for Google Docs in English only. Since then, early adopters of this feature have been providing us with valuable feedback. We've been gathering this feedback and working to improve the offline experience (for example, the offline feature now works with Firefox 3), and now we're ready to bring offline access to more users.

You can now get this feature in an additional 29 languages. To get started, you'll first need to enable offline access for Google Docs. 

Here's a reminder about what you can and can't do offline:

You can...

• view & edit text documents offline
  
• view spreadsheets, forms, and presentations offline
  

For now, you can't...

• edit spreadsheets, forms, and presentations offline
  
• create new text documents, spreadsheets, forms or presentations offline
  
• view uploaded PDFs offline
  

To help ensure that your experience using Google Docs offline is successful, take a look at this user group post which provides some helpful tips on using offline.  

Posted by: Joelle Fornengo, Google Docs Operations

Update: On February 4, 2009, we launched offline access in 9 additional languages.