Collaborative highlighting in documents

Wayne Gretzky famously said that “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”

Writing a document collaboratively in Google Docs is like playing a team sport. It’s one thing to see your co-editors’ cursors and know where they are. But to really work well together, it helps to know what they’re about to do. Today we’ve made it much easier to anticipate the changes other editors are about to make.

You can now see the text that other editors are highlighting as they select it. So if someone is about to delete something on your screen or drag text somewhere else, you’ll see them highlight that text before anything changes.

Image caption: In this document, Thomas is selecting the words “When in the course of human events”.

So stay ahead of the puck and let us know what you think in the comments.

Posted by: Peter Solderitsch, Software Engineer

In-cell dropdown and validation in spreadsheets

Today, we added in-cell dropdown and validation to spreadsheets. This makes it easy to constrain the values of an individual cell to a specific range or list. For example, if you are building a trip planning spreadsheet, you can now limit the options in the travel destination column to a select set of cities via dropdown lists.

In-cell dropdowns also make input easier by reducing unnecessary typing and errors in processing. You can create dropdown lists in individual cells through the data validation tool by validating against a range of cells in your sheet or by creating a custom list.

Follow these steps to create an in-cell dropdown list through validation against a range.

1. Enter data into a range of cells.
• For example, create a list of destinations on your spreadsheet.
2. Select the cell(s) you would like to validate.
3. Under the Tools menu, select Data validation...
4. Change the Criteria to ‘Items from a list.’
5. Click the button next to the ‘Create list from range’ option and select the range of cells you entered data in during Step 1.
   
6. Click Save and the cell you chose to validate will have a dropdown arrow in it with the data in your cell range as the potential input values. If you want, you can set a cell to allow invalid data.

You can also create a in-cell dropdown using a custom list.

1. Under the Tools menu, select Data validation...
2. Change the Criteria to ‘Items from a list.’
3. Click the button next to the 'Enter list items' option.
4. Enter a set of custom values, separated by commas. For example, you could enter "San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles."
5. Click Save and the cell you selected will have a dropdown list with the values you entered as potential input values.
   

Let us know what you think in the comments.

Posted by: Li-Wei Lee, Software Engineer

Show all formulas in your spreadsheets

Finding cells that include formulas in them can sometimes be a bit like looking for something in the dark. To help you illuminate your spreadsheet surroundings, we’re introducing the ability to reveal all formulas with one click.

When you’re comparing formulas with one another or trying to figure out where your formulas aren’t working, showing all formulas should help you out. You can turn this feature on from the formula bar by selecting the “Show All Formulas” button, selecting “Show All Formulas” in the View menu or hitting Ctrl `.

Flip the switch in your spreadsheets to try it out.

Posted by: Matt Ziegelbaum, Software Engineer

Tips & Tricks: Enhancing your Presentations with Incremental Reveal

Today’s blogpost is in a different format, a Google presentation about how incremental reveal can make your presentations better by improving their flow.

Check out the difference by comparing the presentation below with and without incremental reveal. Start by clicking play to view the presentation without incremental reveal. Then click on the "open in new window" button to see the full presentation with incremental reveals in action.




You'll notice how the presentation flows more smoothly and is easier to follow.

Posted by: Bryan Carroll, Consumer Operations Strategist

Horizontal navigation, site footer, and more in Google Sites

One of the most requested Google Sites features is horizontal navigation, which is why we’re happy to announce that it’s finally here along with a few other cool features.

Horizontal navigation
You can now add horizontal navigation to your site’s layout in one of three different flavors: boxes, tabs, and links.





If you want to customize the look and feel of the horizontal navigation, you can set the background, link and hover properties via More actions > Manage site >Colors and Fonts.

If you’ve been craving horizontal navigation, you can get started by going to More actions > Manage site > Site layout > Change site layout.

Global footer
You can now set your site to have a global footer that displays across all pages on the site via More actions > Manage site > Site layout > Change site layout. Use this to add additional navigation and more.

Open embedded Google Docs faster
We’ve added quick links to Google Docs embedded to Google Sites making it easier for collaborators to open embedded documents.


Deleted items
We also added a “Deleted items” section to site management making it easier to get to deleted pages and attachments. Deleted items can be recovered up to 30 days after they have been deleted, after which they will be permanently removed. You can recover items directly from this page, or choose to permanently delete them manually.

Looking forward to hearing about your experiences with these new features!

Posted by: Jennifer King, Software Engineering Intern, Google Sites

Check spelling in Google spreadsheets

Correct spelling is an essential part of document creation and today we woild liek to annnounce that spelll chceking is now available in Google spreadsheets.

To launch the new spell checker, go to Tools > Check spelling. The tool will go through all the cells on your sheet, highlighting each cell which has a misspelled word in red. Words that might be misspelled in each cell are underlined in red and can be changed by clicking on them and selecting the right spelling.

Click Next to go to the next cell and once all the cells on one sheet have been checked, you can continue to the next sheet.

The ability to add words to your own dictionary is also coming. You can learn more about the spell checker here. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Posted by: Jonathan Adams, Software Engineering Intern

New in Gmail Labs: Find docs and sites quickly with Apps Search

Cross posted on the Official Gmail Blog

Where is that presentation? Was it attached to an email? Or in Google Docs? If you’re not sure, you may end up searching several places with the same query in order to find it. With the new “Apps Search” lab in Gmail, we just made that all a bit simpler.

Once you enable it from the Gmail Labs tab under Settings, the “Search Mail” button in Gmail will say “Search Mail and Docs” instead, and your search results will include matching documents and sites in addition to email messages.

We also added “Did you mean?” style suggestions, for those of us who make mistakes (who doesn’t?):

You may notice that mail results show up just as fast as before while non-mail results may take a tiny bit longer. That way, if you’re just looking for an email, having this lab enabled won’t slow you down.

The paint is still wet and we plan to make further improvements the coming months, so be sure to let us know if you have any feedback.

Posted by: Posted by Bram Moolenaar, Software Engineer, Gmail