How to Upload a Word Docuement to Google Docs
Our Verdict
Google Docs offers i of the best user-experiences in word processors right now with superior collaboration tools, support for a wide diverseness of formats also every bit excellent ease of use.
For
- Unparalleled Collaboration Tools
- Broad format compatibility
- Fast, like shooting fish in a barrel to navigate
- Uncomplicated simply not dumbed downwards
Confronting
- No access to custom fonts
- Offline access requires Chrome Extension
Laptop Mag Verdict
Google Docs offers one of the best user-experiences in give-and-take processors correct at present with superior collaboration tools, support for a wide variety of formats likewise as first-class ease of use.
Pros
- +
Unparalleled Collaboration Tools
- +
Broad format compatibility
- +
Fast, easy to navigate
- +
Simple but non dumbed downwards
Cons
- -
No access to custom fonts
- -
Offline admission requires Chrome Extension
In a recent survey, ii of the iii people I shouted questions to from my window concluding week had no idea what Google Docs was, while the other but told me to put some pants on. Ask whatever post-Gen Xer what Google Docs is, yet, and you're likely to get a different response. While Google (the search engine) has amassed incredible popularity — claiming a marketplace share of over 85% and becoming so synonymous with searching for things online that the make is now more commonly used every bit a verb than a noun — many other services offered by the tech giants have a means to go before attaining that aforementioned level of familiarity.
One of those services is Google Docs, a function of the free Google Docs Editor suite and premium Google Workspace suite of office and productivity tools. If you're not familiar with the proper name Google Workspace, you may take come across it previously as Chiliad Suite, or even further dorsum every bit Google Apps. It's this stream of indecisive rebranding that has potentially inhibited the adoption of Google's premium online suite past many, but in the loftier-octane, adrenaline-fueled world of word processors, Google Docs is gaining more and more than traction as the prime competitor to market-dominating Microsoft Give-and-take.
With more people adopting a work-from-domicile approach than ever earlier, Google Docs finds itself in prime positioning to encounter its user base swell. And so what are some of the standout features that showcase the growing popularity of Docs and highlight information technology as a real competitor and potentially meliorate-suited app for yous to consider?
I get a lot of mileage out of word processors so I decided to put Google Docs through its paces and let information technology handle a few of my weekly ongoing tasks and projects to see how it fared.
Google Docs pricing and packages
If you lot take a personal Google account, you already have access to many of Google'due south productivity tools for free through the Google Docs Editor Suite. That ways Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms, Drawing, Sites, Bulldoze and Keep are all bachelor to employ at no cost. Yous tin also employ the app versions of these tools without limitation. Personal Google accounts accept a Google Bulldoze storage space cap of 15GB, which is a sizable corporeality for storing office documents. Even so, if y'all demand more storage, Google offers a premium service chosen Google One that can heave your storage to 100GB for as picayune equally $ii a calendar month.
There'southward no existent drawback to using the gratuitous offerings from Google; you can attain a lot with Google'due south gratuitous offerings. However, if yous're looking for something more than suited for business organization or to manage groups of people, at that place's always Google Workspace.
Google Workspace is the premium productivity suite offered by Google. It includes Google Docs' suite of tools and one or ii more that are focused on communication, security and assistants for managing employees or users. Prices start from $6 per user, per month and the subscription includes numerous perks like custom email domains, digital whiteboarding, additional file type supports for Google Bulldoze, chat messaging, and better phishing and spam protection. There'south also sizable increases to your storage cap depending on which of Google Workspace'southward four premium packages you lot decide upon with 30GB, 2TB, 5TB options maxing out at a rather vague "As much as you need."
In that location are certainly reasons to go premium should you need to micromanage a number of employees or want to ditch the Gmail domain from your e-mail. But the core office suite and its features are the master depict, and are but as functional from within the gratis Google Docs Editor suite.
Google design and interface
Google Docs retains the usual modernistic, flat, stylistic iconography that most Google products contain. While it looks bang-up from a pattern perspective and breathes modernity into the typical word processor interface, I tin can't help but experience in that location'south a distinct lack of personality about Docs' nearly sterile appearance. This is, subsequently all, the same visitor that makes its interns wear propeller hats while expecting their staff to traverse its headquarters using a series of slides and firemen poles like a agglomeration of pocket-protector-wearing ninja warriors.
Docs maintains its minimalistic presentation by removing a lot of the clutter that can be found in its contemporaries. Google's washed this primarily by limiting Docs to 1 focused toolbar that covers the most common deportment such equally formatting, fonts, colors, alignments and inserts. Almost users typically perform the majority of tasks from this master toolbar, which is nifty for productivity as everything feels readily available in ane easy-to-accomplish identify.
It's worth noting that, due to the nature of Google Docs beingness an online service, you will be limited to fonts within the Google Fonts library. There's currently no way of importing custom fonts, which tin be frustrating for those who may, from time to time, demand a specialised style for a project they're working on. However, Google Fonts is fairly extensive and so, with a petty creativity combined with a decent number of available add-ons, y'all may discover this less of an issue.
Further formatting and tools are constitute in the dropdown menus neatly tucked into the header of the page. This brings a less distracting workspace that makes the nearly of whatsoever screen real-estate is available. However, due to Docs running through a web browser, Google's efforts only go as far as the individual user setup allows, with bookmark bars, extensions or search bars limiting the vertical space bachelor by default.
You can, however, compensate for this by minimising the Google Docs header, which will remove the driblet-down menus and broader Google Workspace icons from view, and restore some amount of lost infinite to the page. Docs then implements a handy search bar into your primary toolbar that allows yous to look for items otherwise located in the drop-down menus, meaning yous're never cut off from those tools should yous need them.
The cease result is more than than just pleasing to the middle; the minimalist aesthetics make the overall presentation appear make clean and navigation is a simple affair. Docs maintains the traditional word processor layout while simplifying it wherever possible. It's a design choice that is welcoming to new users without coming across similar a stripped-down version of the competition.
Google Docs operation and compatibility
Thanks to the lightweight design constitute in the app and browser versions, Google Docs feels smooth and responsive with files loading with no existent filibuster. Both the browser and app performed impressively every bit I switched between various documents to gauge their loading times. With most documents, you're unremarkably ready to go inside a second or two, though epitome-heavy files will tend to take a trivial longer (which is to exist expected). Nevertheless, the entire process of opening files from Google Drive is otherwise quick and painless.
One of the great things about Google Docs is its cross-platform capabilities. In that location are no Os-specific file types to deal with when information technology comes to Docs. Instead, anyone with a device that can run Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, or Microsoft Edge (or who has the Google Docs app installed on their mobile device) can create, read, edit, and collaborate with people without any bug. This means no longer having to worry about whether a file will open on the platform of the person receiving your certificate. It's merely i less headache in a needlessly fragmented market.
Receiving files from others made exterior of Google's office suite is as well much less of a headache as Docs boasts compatibility with a varied selection of file formats. Docs tin read and relieve to many pop formats like Microsoft Discussion, OpenDocument, RichText, PDF and Patently Text. Yous tin even download your document as an EPUB if y'all're looking to distribute it. While y'all tin't direct save to the Apple tree Pages format, yous tin still load them into Google Docs and edit from at that place, though you volition have to export it as a different format once you're done. This level of compatibility is hard to argue with, even if some more circuitous formats like PDFs tend to lose formatting upon opening.
Google Docs features
Google Docs is primarily an online tool. Information technology was designed to be that style. As such, when it comes to working online with others, Docs shines then brightly it could directly aircraft through fog. In one case you share a document via e-mail or direct link, upwards to 100 people can view, edit and annotate on that document simultaneously. That's one more than Give-and-take's co-authoring limit of 99. Conspicuously Google is taking a Price Is Right approach to outdoing the competition. I don't know what kind of horrible mess you'd accept to nascency in Docs that would actually require 100 people to get together around, poking and prodding it with suggestions and edits. But just knowing yous can get such a large group shows the versatility of Google Docs' collaboration tools.
All edits take place in existent-time, with each unique user tracked down in the document with a randomly assigned color and cursor. Their edits and suggestions are marked past assigned colors and hover to the right of the page, awaiting your feedback. If you choose to accept these suggestions, changes are made to the document automatically. Comments made by editors almost specific sections are highlighted in yellow, and clicking on that section will highlight the feedback for your acknowledgment.
It'southward easy for documents to become chaotic and difficult to read amid the collaboration process. Thankfully, Google Docs' focus on a simplified work expanse means y'all shouldn't observe yourself lost amid a sea of corrections that are difficult to read or process. Y'all'll even have access to your entire edit history should you make changes you later second-guess.
Google Docs, at its cadre, is a fairly robust word processor. What elevates it to a true competitor are all the Google bells and whistles it brings along. Inserting charts, images or files inside your document draws upon the wider Google Workspace and Google Bulldoze services. You can translate your document to every available Google Translate language without also much fuss. Yous can also use your voice to blazon, making apply of Google'south impressive Speech-to-Text technology. Docs can automatically correct any spellings and make grammar suggestions in real-time thanks to Google's auto learning and dictionary. There's also the Google Workspace Marketplace which affords numerous add-ons to further expand the features available.
There are also some interesting built-in tools that further boost Docs' productivity, namely the outliner and explore tab. The outliner is a sliding sidebar menu that automatically keeps track of your headers and titles, and so presents them as an interactive list that acts as an index of sorts so you can flick through larger documents much easier. Most the base of the page is a floating button that directs you to the explore tab, allowing you lot to speedily search for citations, images and Google Drive contents.
Google Docs autosave
One of Docs' most valuable features is its auto-save. Y'all'll notice a distinct lack of a save push within Google Docs; this is because saving is a continuous process performed automatically with each keystroke and click (so long equally y'all have a stable internet connection). It's invaluable if you're the type of person who often saves as an afterthought rather than a habit.
Should your computer lock upward — or you exit your device unattended briefly and that Windows Update yous've been delaying for a week finally decides to push itself through — y'all won't be left every bit a potential r/WatchPeopleDieInside candidate. In fact, should that happen, you could avoid whatever wasted time and load upwards the same document on another device and seamlessly continue your piece of work from the moment you left off. And once you have access to your master device again, just switch back with all your up-to-date piece of work waiting.
Thanks to spotty internet, there were a few times I lost connection while using Google Docs. In those moments, I continued writing and the document instantly began its saving routines once a connectedness was re-established. There is an offline version of Google Docs bachelor, but information technology's but obtainable through a Google Chrome extension. For an app that does so much to promote compatibility beyond numerous platforms and browsers, information technology's a shame Google decided to lock offline access in such a specific style.
Bottom line
When it comes to choosing your word processor or office suite, we all know that Microsoft is the king of the loma in many optics. With nearly four decades of development, it isn't easy for another tool or suite to come along and catch up. And while it can exist said that Google Docs doesn't quite take the same level of features as Word, is it really missing $70 worth of features? In my view, no. Most of what Docs is missing can exist found as add-ons, and the tools it does offer for gratis should make yous second estimate paying and so much for a Microsoft 365 subscription.
In that location's a freshness to what Google is offer with Docs; it looks mod, feels modern and is fabricated with modern cyberspace-focused collaboration in mind. What it does, it does very well. What it doesn't do won't be of import to most users.
Docs outshines the contest in collaboration, portability, compatibility, and even in potential customization through the Google Workspace Marketplace. Information technology's easy to get the hang of, at that place's less ataxia, and the overall experience is smooth and intuitive. Oh, and it's costless.
To anybody subscribed to the contest, Google Docs is at the very least worth giving a shot considering you may exist paying for a suite of tools that is already bachelor to you for costless.
Google Docs, either through Google Docs Editor suite or Google Workspace is a definitive challenger in the function and productivity suite market. It may even be the time to come of information technology.
Source: https://www.laptopmag.com/uk/reviews/google-docs
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