Counting Down to NFL Season? Let Google Docs Count for You.

Guest post: Beah Burger, a member of the Search Quality team here at Google, has an affinity for using lesser-known Google spreadsheet functions to solve everyday problems. A couple of months ago, Beah wrote in her personal blog about how her favorite Google spreadsheet function, GoogleLookup, helped her create a list of song recommendations for her friends' wedding. We asked Beah to write a guest post about another off-the-beaten-path use of Google spreadsheets.

Three years ago I packed up my sub-compact car, bid farewell to teary-eyed parents, and drove more 3,000 miles from Philadelphia to San Francisco. California is great, but I miss my hometown dearly. My coworkers -- most of whom think I'm "obsessed" -- allow me to hang a Pennsylvania state flag and various Philadelphia sports posters around the office. But I feel most connected with my hometown through my fanatical devotion to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Although Northern California weather doesn't really recognize the existence of seasons, my year is divided into two: NFL season and the off season. I've been anticipating the start of the 2009 season for months and recently decided I'd use Google to track just how much longer I need to wait.

A web search for "nfl schedule" revealed the Eagles' first regular season game is September 13th, but I wanted to know exactly how many days stand between me and Eagles' glory (or heartbreak). I'm a much bigger fan of the Eagles than I am of math, so I was relieved to find a pair of Google spreadsheets functions that not only count the days for me, but also keep that count updated over time. Here's how it works:

The DAYS360 function calculates the difference between two given dates. In this case, the dates we want to plug in (the "arguments") are:

1. Today's date
2. September 13th

To get the first argument, we will use the TODAY function. I could enter today's date, but using the TODAY function makes for a smarter spreadsheet because it will update automatically each day. The TODAY function is really simple and requires no inputs (or arguments); I just type "=TODAY()" into a cell in my spreadsheet, and the function returns "8/7/09."

Now I want to create a cell with the second argument for the DAYS360 function: the game date. I'll type "Sep 13" into cell B4. Google spreadsheets understand that I am typing a date and automatically convert the text to this format: "9/13/2009."

So far, so good. Now that we have our two arguments, we are ready to use the DAYS360 function. The syntax for DAYS360 is "=DAYS360(date_1, date_2, type)". Because date_1 is located in cell A2 and date_2 is located in cell B4, the function should look like this: "=DAYS360(A2, B4)". (The "type" argument is optional and not necessary here so I'll omit it). I could also have skipped typing "Aug 13" into its own cell and written the function like this: "=DAYS360(A2, "8/13/2009")".

Triumph! Upon hitting return, the function gives me the number of days between now and the Eagles' first regular season game: 36.

If you want to view an additional example of the DAYS360 function or see other useful functions, visit the Google spreadsheets function list. Otherwise, adjust your digital antennas and stock up on nacho supplies because the Eagles' season is almost here.

Posted by: Beah Burger, Search Quality Strategist

Use Google Docs & Google Checkout to Sell Online

The Google Checkout store gadget -- a new offering just released to Google Labs -- allows anyone to create an online store using a Google spreadsheet. How does it all work?

Using new Spreadsheet Data APIs, we've integrated Google Docs and Google Checkout to make online selling a breeze. In three simple steps, you'll be able to create an online store that's powered by Google Checkout and has inventory managed and stored in a Google spreadsheet.

No complicated coding or technical tasks are required. You can get your first online store up-and-running in under five minutes.

1. Sign up for Google Checkout
2. List products you want to sell in a Google spreadsheet
3. Place the Google Checkout store gadget on your website. (Also supported: Google Sites, Blogger, and iGoogle).

Ready to get started? Create your online store using the Google Checkout store gadget today.

Here's a quick summary of the required steps.

1. Sign up for Google Checkout

Signing up for Google Checkout is quick and easy. You'll use your Checkout account to process orders placed at your new online store. Plus, Checkout can also help you attract new leads, convert more sales, and enjoy sophisticated protection against fraud.

2. List products you want to sell in a Google Docs spreadsheet

First, create a copy of our template spreadsheet. Next, replace the sample inventory with your own. Our step-by-step guide will walk you through the set-up and publishing of your spreadsheet.

3. Place the Google Checkout store gadget on your website.

You can embed the store gadget anywhere you'd like. The step-by-step guide has detailed instructions for embedding your new online store in Google Sites, Blogger, iGoogle, or your personal website. Sample sites with the gadget embedded:

Learn more about the Google Checkout store gadget, or review our troubleshooting guide if you have any difficulty implementing the Checkout store gadget on your site.

Posted by: Mike Giardina, Strategist, Google Checkout

Making presentations better with tables and auto-play

The Google Docs team pays close attention to what users say on our forums, and we've heard one issue loud and clear: You want tables. Actually, we really wanted tables too. Well, we're pleased to announce that we now have tables in presentations, which can be useful for organizing data that matters to your audience.



Once you've inserted a table into your presentation, you can easily add, select, and resize rows and columns with a single click , format and align text across the table, and set background colors for your cells and borders. Your rows will grow to fit content as you type it. Collaborators can even make edits to the same table simultaneously. Now, when you import tables from Microsoft Office PowerPoint they'll show up as editable tables in Google Docs. Try the new table menu by choosing "Table" in the presentation editor, or you can learn more about the feature here.

We also get great ideas for features from our users. For example:



Thanks for telling us what you think and helping us make presentations better. Keep it up.

Posted by: Dave Santoro and Attila Bodis, Software Engineers

Public Template Gallery submissions now open to everyone

Since we launched the public template gallery last year, people who use Google Docs have been asking for a way to share their own templates with all Google Docs users by uploading them to the public gallery.

Today, we've opened up the template gallery to the public and added a "Submit a template" link in the top right corner of the gallery page. If you have a great spreadsheet for planning a family vacation or a tried and tested form for collecting customer feedback, you can now submit your template to the gallery and anyone using Google Docs will be able to try it out.

Templates can be documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and even forms. Other people can preview your templates, and then click "use this template" to create their own copy for personal use. They can also rate your templates to help other users find the most useful templates.

Once you upload a template to the gallery, you can also embed your template (with a thumbnail image) into your own website or blog.

As before, the public template gallery makes it easy to sort and browse the templates by category, usage, rating, and document type. Do you have a document, presentation, spreadsheet or form that you want to add to the public template gallery? To get started, follow these steps:

1. Go to the "Google Docs Template Gallery"
2. Click the "Submit a template" link
3. Select the document you want to add to the template gallery, enter in a description, choose an appropriate category and click "Submit template"

If you're using Google Apps, check out this blog post about sharing templates within your own organization. We look forward to seeing what you create and upload to the gallery. If you have any feedback on the public template gallery, please let us know at http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Docs.

Posted by: Valerie Blechar, Software Engineer

Pardon our Dust

We're always looking for ways to make it easier to find what you're looking for in Google Docs, which is why we're taking some time to do a bit of remodeling to the Docs list. Over the next few weeks you'll see a number of small changes, culminating in a brand new shiny interface.

One thing you'll probably notice in the next few days is that the "Shared with..." list in the left hand pane will go away. But don't worry, you can still use Search to do the same thing. Just click on "Search Options" and type the user's name into the "Shared with:" box. If this is a search you'll do over and over again, you can click "Save this search" so it will be easily accessible in "Saved Searches".

Another thing you'll see is the new Sharing Menu. We feel this is a big improvement over the old one; we've moved all the sharing functionality into this one dialog, so now you can completely manage sharing without having to leave the Docs list.

We also added a few search operators, so you can now search with:

• Exact phase matching, by using quotes: ["match this phrase exactly"]
• Or: ["tacos" OR "nachos"]
• Negation: [salsa -dancing]. This will include items with salsa recipes, but not items about dancing
• Who the doc is shared from or to: [from:bob@gmail.com] or [to:bob@gmail.com]
• Star or Hidden state: [is:starred] or [is:hidden]
  

You'll see these changes happen over the next few weeks. They will be followed shortly by the new interface and a number of pretty exciting features we have in the pipe.

In the meantime, please pardon our dust. :-)

Posted by: Vijay Bangaru, Product Manager, Google Docs

Using Google Docs to organize a karoake road trip

We're always excited to hear how people are using Google Docs to organize their lives. Tara Hunt, author of the The Whuffie Factor, recently told us about her experience using Google Docs to plan Whuffaoke or Bust, a karoake road trip across America:

Whuffaoke or Bust has been quite the undertaking to organize. The crew members reside in 4 different locations, with one of them in the UK. We have local ambassadors in the 14 city stops. We have 8 sponsors who are quite involved at some level. And everyone and everything is geographically spread out. Pretty much everything requires online collaboration tools.

We have been using Google Docs extensively to organize Whuffaoke or Bust. Almost all of the pieces of this complicated production require input from multiple parties. We also need to maintain a high level of transparency to make sure that every member of the crew, the sponsors and the ambassadors know what is going on because things change daily, it seems. The smallest of details is important. For example, we ran into a communication issue because RV specifications hadn't been updated with the fact that we are now adding an exterior stage. This changes where we can park the RV for the parties drastically. As soon as I updated our shared Google Doc, everyone knew the score.

My favorite part of Google Docs is the live collaboration, though. We have weekly conference calls with the crew where we use a live task list that we are all adding to and crossing off. It's really satisfying to see this document change as we are discussing the points. It really drives home that we are making progress. The added chat features and notes in the docs make them much easier to collaborate in as well. Any questions we have on tasks (who are they assigned to? progress updates?) can be made along the way without messing up the main document.

We also use Google Groups for our email correspondence. We have a group for the Whuffaoke crew and a group for the Whuffaoke local ambassadors. By using these groups, we don't forget who is where when.

Google Docs has made planning Whuffaoke or Bust easier.

Whuffaoke or Bust's first stop is in San Francisco on July 15th. Do you have a story about your experience using Google Docs? Let us know by sharing your story.

Posted by: Jonathan Rochelle, Group Product Manager, Google Docs

Removing the beta label

If you look closely in the upper left hand corner of Google Docs later in the day, you'll notice that we've removed the small grey word "beta" from our logo. We're dropped our "beta" label today along with the other Google Apps (Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Talk). You can read more about this change on the Official Google Blog.

Over the past year, we've launched hundreds of features and product improvements to Google Docs, many of which we've documented on this blog and our What's New page. We still have a long "to do" list of features and enhancements that we're actively working on. Look for these changes over the coming months and years.

Posted by: Jonathan Rochelle, Group Product Manager, Google Docs