When it comes to technology territory, the power, potential, and necessity of Google Docs can’t be underestimated. The venture into the cloud gives Google an edge over competitor Microsoft in what has long been Microsoft’s home turf: productivity. Of course, Google Docs only set the precedent. Now Microsoft is rushing into cloud-based software, and even Apple is having a stab at select services, prompting Google to – as always – adapt or perish.
Lucky for Google, they’re pretty good at that. Their most recent set of new features includes improvements to the discussions interface, the addition of a soft delete, the Ubuntu font, and an “Ignore All” option for words inside your documents. Here’s a more detailed breakdown of those features:
- Beyond having an improved look and feel, each discussion pane will also show the text the discussion is attached to.
- The discussions section now has a “Statistics” panel that lets you see the 7-day activity for visitors to your document.
- Longer discussions are in a collapsed state by default (and can be un-collapsed with a single click).
- Email notifications for discussion replies have been re-touched. They now show the most recent comment at the top and provide the full discussion below (as opposed to just showing the full discussion in reverse chronological order).
- In the spell-check menu users will now be able to select the “Ignore All” option. This will tell the current document that hteword should be ignored for this document only (giving you a less permanent option than adding a word, such as a last name or made up term that may be exclusive to the current document, to your dictionary).
- The Ubuntu font has been added for documents.
- Sites that are deleted are now “soft deleted,” allowing you to access them in a the “Trash” menu for easier restoration.
Google is doing well at maintaining a high speed of innovation. But Microsoft Office 365 is in Beta, iCloud just got released, and the competition is about to get heated.
[via the Google Docs Blog]
