Google Workspace: Docs

Docs is Google’s answer to Microsoft Word, in your web browser or app. It is an online, collaborative word processor that is part of Google Drive and Google Workspace. As long as you are connected to the internet, all your changes are saved instantly.

You can access Docs by going to docs.google.com or you will see your Docs files in your Drive.

Create a new document

You can create a new document from either Google Drive or from Google Docs.

In Drive, you can click the + New button in the top left corner then select Docs.

In Docs, you’ll be given a few templates and a Blank option to start from, if you click Template gallery then you will be offered a Barton template with the college letterhead on it.

Alternatively as we learned in The Basics, you can just type in docs.new in to your browser.

The Toolbar

The main toolbar along the top of a Docs window houses some key features that you probably won’t use each time but it’s extremely useful to know about. It also tells you when things are saved. As you type or make other changes, the All changes saved in Drive text will change to Saving… as you can see below.

We’ll go through some of the toolbar menus now, others you can discover on your own.

The Toolbar

Make a copy… – Make a duplicate of the document you are in.

Download as – Download your document in other formats, such as Word or PDF.

Email as attachment – Send your document as an email, can attach as other formats, such as Word or PDF.

Version History – See all the changes you and others have made to the document or revert it to earlier documents.

Format

Text – Change the format of text including size, capitalisation and subscript.

Columns – Change the format of the document to allow columns of text.

Headers & Footers – Change the size of the header and footer.

Insert

Image – Insert an image from your computer, Google Images, Drive and more.

Table – Select the number of columns and rows to create and add a table.

Drawing – Create pictures, flowcharts, diagrams and more.

Link – Add a link to a webpage or location/bookmark in your document.

Bookmark – Add shortcuts to specific places within your document.

Table of contents – Create an auto generated table of contents that links to each heading (where you’ve applied headings and titles).

Formatting Toolbar

Docs has a lot of the same features as Word, only it doesn’t take up a huge amount of the screen.

The image below shows the main editing features of Docs, the Format text option lets you quickly change text from plain text in to a title or heading. The other settings allow you to manually change the font, size, colour and formatting of text as well as it’s layout on the page.

One useful feature that not a lot of people are aware of is the Paint format button, it’s symbolised as a paint roller icon and is the first shown on the image below. If you select a piece of text, click this button and then select a different piece of text, Docs will instantly change the format of the second piece to the same as the first. This saves a lot of time if you want to change certain paragraphs or phrases rather than having to manually change the colour or size of each part individually.

If you need extra settings that aren’t here, click on the Format button along the main toolbar for other settings such as Strike-through or to add columns into your document. Most of the settings available on this toolbar can be found under the Format menu on the main toolbar too.

Automatic Substitution

If you want to save yourself some time, in the long run, you can set some Automatic Substitution to automatically change words that you type in. For example, if there are certain words you spell incorrectly all the time, you can save time by putting in the incorrect spelling and the correct spelling. This will save you time as the change will be made instantly instead of having to use Spell Checker.

Voice Typing

Use voice typing to write without typing. This only works when you’ve got a microphone installed or attached to your computer, like all the college Chromebooks.

Click Tools > Voice Typing and click the microphone to turn it red.

Comment Tags

When using a document, you can tag someone in a comment that you are making. If for example you wanted to ask someone’s opinion on a piece of text, you can insert a comment and use the @ symbol along with their name or initials to tag them.

Click the box next to Assign to make sure they action the comment.

Version History

Google automatically saves your docs every time you stop typing or make an edit but Version History automatically saves a copy of the doc when large changes are made such as adding a new paragraph of text. It also notes who has made those changes.

You can use Version History to go back and see what changes have been made and by who, only the latest 100 revisions will be shown, anything older will have been removed.

You can name a version of your document to easily find it in future, otherwise each revision will be shown by the date and time. If you are confident in what you’ve done, it might be worth naming it to save yourself time in future.

To access Version History, click File and find Version History in the list then select See version history. You’ll then be shown a page with changes along with a list of versions and names on the right hand side.

Highlighted text is text that has been added where text that has been striked through is text that has been removed. The colour corresponds to who has edited it.

Explore

A relatively new feature in Docs, Sheets and Slides, the explore button will provide different options in each app.

In Docs it will scan through your text and suggest relevant websites, images and other content from the web or items stored in your Google Drive. The general idea is that you can add images and citations that Google think is relevant to your writing without leaving the Doc.

You can find the Explore icon in the bottom right corner of a Doc window, once you click it you will have all of Google’s suggestions and content at your fingertips.

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