In case you haven’t noticed them already, here are a handful of small updates that will make it easier to find, organize, and view stuff on Drive.

• Search by person: Can't remember the name of a file but know who shared it with you? Now Drive search auto-completes people’s names making it easier to find the stuff you’re looking for.

• View Google Earth map files: You can now open, preview, and interact with Google Earth files (.kml and .kmz) right inside Google Drive on the web.

• Create new folders while organizing files: Now when you select files in your Drive list, in addition to adding them to an existing folder, you can add them directly to a new folder.

• Drag and drop folders in Chrome: If you’re using Chrome, you can drag and drop entire folders from your desktop to Drive on the web.

• Search includes your trash: Sometimes files you are looking for accidentally ended up in your trash, so now search results include files there too.

Posted by Josh Hudgins, Product Manager

Summer brings fun in the sun (in our hemisphere, at least) and a bunch of updates to Google Drive. A few weeks ago at Google I/O, we announced a couple of highly requested features: the ability to edit Google documents offline and a Drive app for iOS.

When you enable Docs offline in Google Drive, you can create & edit Google documents and view Google spreadsheets, without being connected to the internet. Today we updated the offline experience so it looks the same as when you’re online - except it’s filtered to show just your offline docs. Here’s an extra tip: if you want to preview which files are available offline, select More > Offline Docs in the left navigation pane while you’re still connected to the web. This update will roll out to all Drive users over the next few days.

In the past month we’ve also made several other improvements like:

• updates to Google Apps Script including a standalone script editor, the ability to create richer user interfaces, options to easily store your application’s data, and support for publishing scripts to the Chrome Web Store 
• expanded language support in the documents and presentations spellchecker to include German, French and Italian 
• the ability to print documents, spreadsheets, and presentations to any cloud connected printer with Google Cloud Print from any browser 
• up to 400pt font support in documents and presentations 
• copying and pasting images from your desktop into a document or presentation 
• an easy way to edit or open links from text by right clicking on them 

Posted by Owen Merkling, Software Engineer

Today we announced some of the updates we’ve released recently to make Google’s applications more accessible to the blind community. For Google Docs and Sites, we’re pleased to announce new keyboard shortcuts and better screen reader support for our blind users.

Screen reader support in Google Docs and Sites
To help blind users read, edit and navigate content, Google Docs (including documents list, documents and spreadsheets) and Sites now support two screen readers: JAWS and ChromeVox. Here are a few examples of how screen readers work in Google Docs and Sites:

• In documents, you’ll hear feedback when you format text or insert tables, lists or comments in your document.
  
• In spreadsheets, you’ll hear the cell’s location, contents and comments when moving between cells.
  
• In both documents and spreadsheets, you’ll hear feedback as you navigate to areas outside the main content area, such as the menu bar, chat pane and dialog boxes.
  
• In your documents list, you’ll hear feedback when you upload or download a file, organize collections or move between files in your documents list.
  
• In Sites, you’ll hear feedback as you navigate and manage your sites, create and edit pages, and navigate through menus and dialog boxes.

For a complete list of screen reader-supported features and instructions for how to use them, visit the Docs and Sites help centers.

New keyboard shortcuts
We’ve also added new keyboard shortcuts to make it easier to use Google Docs and Sites. In your documents list, for example, you can use the up and down arrow keys to move through the files in the list, and you can open the selected document by hitting Enter. For a complete list of keyboard shortcuts, please refer to the help center articles for spreadsheets, documents, documents list and Sites.

With these new accessibility features, we hope to make it easier for everyone to use Google Docs and Sites. Please use this form to share your feedback directly with the accessibility team so we can continue to improve our products.

Posted by: Jeff Harris, Product Manager

This week in Docs, we’re introducing three new tools that put the fun in functional.

Format painter in Google documents

First, we’ve added a format painter to help you copy formatting within Google documents. The new format painter allows you to copy the style of your text, including font, size, color and other formatting options and apply it somewhere else in your document. To use the format painter, select the text for the formatting you want to copy, press the paintbrush button in your toolbar, and then select the text where you want to apply that formatting.

If you double-click on the format painter icon, you’ll enter a mode that lets you select multiple sections of text so you can apply the same formatting to each section.

You can also use keyboard shortcuts for format painting. To copy the style of your selected text, press Ctrl+Option+C for Mac or Ctrl+Alt+C for Windows. To apply any copied styles to whatever text you have selected, press Ctrl+Option+V for Mac or Ctrl+Alt+V for Windows.

Google Fusion Tables in documents list

With this week’s update, we’re also integrating Google Fusion Tables into your documents list. Google Fusion Tables is a data management web application that makes it easy to gather, visualize and collaborate on data online. Now you’ll be able to store and share your Fusion Tables with the rest of the files in your documents list.

Recently, people have used Google Fusion Tables to:

• Visualize evacuation zones for New York City during Hurricane Irene
  
• Host data sets made public by the State of California
  
• Gather data from local flu shot clinics for Google Flu Vaccine Finder
  
• Map shelters and road status during the tsunami crisis in Japan

Go to Create new > Table from your documents list menu to get started visualizing or sharing tables of data in .csv, .xls or .kml files.

We're working on making Google Fusion Tables available to Google Apps customers and will let you know as soon as they are. Take a tour to learn more about Google Fusion Tables.

Drag & drop images in Google drawings

We also made it easier to add images from your desktop to Google drawings. If you’re using the latest version of Chrome, Safari, or Firefox, you can now drag an image from your desktop and drop it directly in the drawing canvas.


Give these tools a try and let us know what you think in the comments.

Posted by: Micah Lemonick, Software Engineer

Updated 9/13 to add shortcuts for Windows

Last June, we introduced the ability to upload documents into Google Docs using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). OCR analyzes images and PDF files, typically produced by a scanner (or the camera of a mobile phone), extracts text and some formatting and allows you to edit the document in Google Docs.

We’ve gotten a lot of feedback on this feature, and one of the biggest requests was to add support for additional languages. Today, we’re happy to announce that we’ve added support for 29 additional character sets, including those used in most European languages, Russian, Chinese Simplified and some other Asian languages. See the upload page for the full list.

How does it work? When uploading your images and PDF files using Google Docs, tell us what language your documents are in:

Over the past year, many of you have been taking advantage of the ability to upload any file to Google Docs. With more files and of a variety of file types in one place, it becomes more difficult to organize and find what you need quickly. As a result, we are happy to announce that, over the next couple of days, we’ll be rolling out a refresh to the documents list, aimed to make it more useful to find, explore and share all your files stored 100% on the web.


First, we added a number of filters in this refresh, making it easier to narrow your search by type, visibility state, and other criteria. We also added priority sorting as a option in all views. Priority sorting is like Gmail’s Priority Inbox, in that we look at a number of signals to put your most relevant files at the top of the list. And you can still use other sort orders like Last Modified Date or by Name.


This update will also improve the experience of exploring and browsing your files. We added a preview panel on the right side of the document list, so that you can see a preview thumbnail, sharing settings and more at a glance. And if the file is a video, you can start playing it directly from the preview panel or from the recently announced video player.


To make it easier to view photos, you can now click on the magnifying glass on a photo to open a full screen slide-show viewer.


There is also a new view called Home. The contents of the Home view are controlled by you so that the content you access the most often is easier to get to. You can remove files from the Home view by right clicking the file and selecting Don’t show in home to hide them. And when you need them, these files can always be found later by selecting All items or using search.

You may also notice Collections have replaced Folders in the left navigation bar. Collections are designed to combine the best features of labels and folders. A file can live in multiple collections, just like with Gmail labels. Collections can also be stored hierarchically, just like folders on your desktop. And of course, collections can be shared, just like you can share docs.

Along with the improved find-ability and browsing experience, we streamlined the interface. For example, instead of using checkboxes to select multiple files, you can just use your Shift or Control (Cmd on Macs) keys.

That’s not all. We’ve also been working hard on increasing the speed of the documents list by overhauling our back-ends to make things snappier.

This refresh is rolling out now and should be available to everyone over the next couple days. For Google Apps for Business customers that don’t have “Enable pre-release features” box checked, this refresh will be coming in a few weeks.

Once the refresh is rolled out to your account, take the in-product tour and let us know what you think.

Posted by: Vijay Bangaru, Product Manager

Update: Thanks everyone for the helpful feedback. We’re listening, and are making a number of changes including:

• Collections: Now you will see all collections appear in the left hand navigation pane, even if you remove them from your Home view. We also added a new filter for “Collections” to the “More options” so you can find collections faster.
  
• Details Pane: For those who pointed out that the new details pane doesn’t work on smaller screens or you simply want to hide it, we’re going to make the details pane collapsible in the next few weeks
  
• Search: While in the new “Home” view, search results focus only on items in Home. If you’d like to search across all your stuff, you will need to switch to “All Items” and search in there. To help clarify, starting next week, we’ll be including a message at the top of the search results that will provide a link to “Search All Items” instead of just the current location.

Keep the feedback coming, there are more changes on the way as we work to make the document list simple and easier for you to use.

Happy New Year! We’re starting this year by making it easier to view memories from 2010 that you’ve uploaded to your document list directly in your browser. Just click on a video in a supported format and press play.

Please note that some videos uploaded earlier last year might not have been processed yet and will be available soon. Also, newly uploaded videos may take some time to process before they are available for viewing.

So what are you waiting for? Press play!

Posted by: Patrick Lacz, Software Engineer

We’ve been keeping busy this year with over 85 new enhancements to Google Docs and Google Sites, making it possible for you to work, communicate and collaborate entirely in the cloud. We wanted to take a moment to share a few of the most exciting enhancements from 2010 that are making it easier for you to go “100% web.”

In addition to some of the most requested favorite features like mobile editing, OCR, advanced sorting rules and a more consistent look, here are more of our team’s favorite things from this last year:

• A new Google Docs built from the ground up for real-time collaboration
• The new Google drawings editor for making flowcharts, diagrams and more
• Upload and store your files in the cloud and stop worrying about losing files
• Simplified sharing with new features like “Private”
• New charts editor and chart types because pictures are worth 1000 words
• New revision history UI in documents and spreadsheets make it easier to see what has changed
• Horizontal navigation in Sites gives you more options when building your sites
• More fonts in documents provide you with more ways to express yourself
• Formula highlighting in spreadsheets makes it easier to understand your formulas
• Google Docs demo makes it easier for anyone to try Google Docs

We look forward to bringing you more improvements next year. Let us know what is at the top of your Google Docs and Sites wish list in the comments.

On behalf of the entire the Google Docs and Google Sites teams, happy holidays! We’ll see you in the New Year!

Posted by: Jonathan Rochelle, Director, Product Management

We just launched a pair of features that can save you time and give you more room to work: drag and drop upload and compact controls.

Drag and drop upload
A few weeks ago, we made it easier to add images to your documents using drag and drop. Today we’re extending that functionality to the file upload page, making it even easier to move your files into the cloud. Now if you’re using Chrome, Safari, or Firefox, you’ll be able to quickly drag files into the drop area and shoot them up to the cloud.

About a year ago, I started scanning and uploading all the important papers floating around my house into Google Docs. It seemed like an obvious solution to three things that drove me crazy:

• Clutter (I believe papers not only accumulate but secretly multiply)
• Access (I always need that bill/file that is at home and not at the office with me)
• Sharing (It’s a common occurrence that I need someone else to also look at that file, and that person is hardly ever with me at the office either.)

Scanning and uploading ended up being only half the battle. My house was cleaner, but my organizing and sharing work-flow was far from perfect. So, I developed a system in Google Docs to keep organized. Here are some tips & tricks that you may find useful:

Folders and sub-folders
What: With the Create New button in the upper left, you can create folders to organize your content. Click on your newly created folder on the left hand side of your document list. While you’re there, you can click Create New again to make a sub-folder within the first folder.
Tip: To minimize how many folders I see on the left hand side, I create general folder titles like Bills and Photos. I then use sub-folders for clearer classification like Electricity and Cell Phone under my ‘Bills’ folder. When I’m uploading a scanned document I’m able select the appropriate sub-folder right away.

Shared folders
What: Once you’ve created a folder, you can keep it for yourself, or share it with anyone. Right click on a folder, select Share, and choose the sharing option that best fits your need.
Tip: My husband and I compiled all of our immigration paperwork into one folder. Recently my brother took the plunge and also had to work his way through this process. By sharing my folder with him, it made it easier for him to see what was needed and simplified the process a bit (at least that’s what he told me...).

Managing document versions
What: Click on any file and select ‘Add or manage versions’ in order to upload and group different versions of the same document together.
Tip: While this is an ideal tool for a designer that wants to keep iterations of the same graphic in one place, I found my own everyday use for this feature. I keep track of items where the most recent has more importance than past ones. For example, I scan my taxes, and upload the oldest ones first so the newest one is visible, but I have the option to download past copies.

Exporting your files
What: Someone you know doesn’t live in the cloud? Gasp! No worries, I can easily export all the files in a folder. Just right-click the folder, choose Export, and click the Download button.
Tip: Taking this action will save a .zip file to my computer’s hard drive that I can then email to anyone who’s not as tech-savvy (though, I might have to unzip the file for them too!).

If you’re in the mood to give your filing cabinet the boot, chime in here with your own tips for moving your files to the cloud.

Posted by: Rebecca Steelman, Consumer Operations

Two big advantages of building web applications are frequent feature releases and easier cross-product sharing. Today we have a little of both for you. This week, we are adding version history to uploaded files in the documents list as well as drop downs in horizontal navigation and a new sharing experience to Google Sites.

Version history
Earlier this year, we added the ability to “Upload any file” to Google Docs so that you upload, store, and share any file up to 1 GB in size. Now you can upload new versions of the same file to your document list. Previously, each time you updated a file, you would have to upload the new version as a new file with a new URL, re-share it, and put in the correct folders again.

When you select the “Add or manage versions” option on any file, you can upload new versions of a file, download previous versions, and delete older versions.

Today, we’re happy to announce that you can now convert files already uploaded to your documents list into a Google Docs format. Previously, this option was only available on upload.

This addition includes converting image and PDF files to text using our recently added Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. The full list of files that can be converted include:

• For spreadsheets: .xls, .xlsx, .ods, .csv, .tsv, .txt, .tsb
• For documents: .doc, .docx, .html, plain text (.txt), .rtf, .odt
• For presentations: .ppt, .pps
• For OCR: .jpg, .gif, .png, .pdf

To convert your file, right-click on it while in the document list and select Make a Google Docs copy. This option leaves your original file in place and adds a new Google Docs copy to your docs list.


Now you convert your old files and collaborate on them in cloud. We hope you enjoy it! Let us know if you have feedback or suggestions.

Posted by: Jim McMaster, Software Engineer

Have you ever tried looking for a document or spreadsheet from a particular time or from a certain person about a specific topic? Let’s say you’re a rocket scientist and you’re looking for the presentation about “Prototype rockets with lasers” that your manager sent you last year.

Normally, you’d just search for [rockets lasers prototypes]. But, lets face it, you’re a rocket scientist so you get lots of matching results; just about every document you have is about rockets or lasers.

You could narrow the search in the advanced search menu or you can use Search Operators and refine the search directly in the search box:

• Quotes for exact phrase matching. Example: [ "match this phrase exactly" ]
• OR to allow either one of several words. Example: [ "rockets" OR "shuttles" ]
• Items without a certain word: [ rocket -man ] will return docs that mention rocket, but not rocket man.
• Items you shared with, or had shared with you: [ from:ted@rocketsnlasers.com ] or [ to:ted@rocketsnlasers.com ]
• Starred or Hidden items: [ is:starred ] or [ is:hidden ]

And we recently added a some new search operators:

• Type of doc: [ type:{document, spreadsheet, presentation} ]
• Items edited before (or after) a certain day: [ before:YYYY-MM-DD, after:YYYY-MM-DD ]
• Items owned by Ted: [ owner:ted@rocketsnlasers.com ]
• Items with “rocket” in the title: [ title:rocket ]; [ subject:rocket ] does the same thing

Now you, the rocket scientist, should be able to easily find your boss’ presentation by searching for [ rocket laser prototypes from:overhead@rocketsnlasers.com before:2010-01-01 type:presentation ].

Posted by: Vivek Haldar, Software Engineer

Earlier today, we added a new view option to your Documents List: thumbnail view.

We're happy to announce that over the next few weeks we will be rolling out the ability to upload, store and organize any type of file in Google Docs. With this change, you'll be able to upload and access your files from any computer -- all you need is an Internet connection.

Instead of emailing files to yourself, which is particularly difficult with large files, you can upload to Google Docs any file up to 250 MB. You'll have 1 GB of free storage for files you don't convert into one of the Google Docs formats (i.e. Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentations), and if you need more space, you can buy additional storage for $0.25 per GB per year. This makes it easy to backup more of your key files online, from large graphics and raw photos to unedited home videos taken on your smartphone. You might even be able to replace the USB drive you reserved for those files that are too big to send over email.

Combined with shared folders, you can store, organize, and collaborate on files more easily using Google Docs. For example, if you are in a club or PTA working on large graphic files for posters or a newsletter, you can upload them to a shared folder for collaborators to view, download, and print.

You can also search for document files you've uploaded or that have been shared with you just like you do with your Google documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and PDFs. And you'll be able to view many common document file types with the Google Docs viewer.

To learn how businesses can take advantage of this new functionality, check out the post on the Enterprise Blog.

As always, we’d love your feedback and if you have any questions, please check out our help page. This feature will be enabled for your account over the next couple of weeks — look for the bubble notification when you sign in to Google Docs.

Posted by: Vijay Bangaru, Product Manager, Google Docs

Over the next few days, we will be enabling several new features in your Docs list.

Sort by relevance

The first is the addition of relevance ranking in your Docs list search results. Until now, anytime you searched for a document, the results were sorted by "last modified date".

Earlier today we made two additions to the Google Docs settings page. The first, "Where items open," lets you pick if you want items to open in a new window (how it works today) or in the same window.

A couple weeks ago, we launched "New!" and "Viewed/unviewed" indicators in the docs list which allow you to easily spot brand new and updated items. Since not everyone loves these -- shocking, I know :-) - we also added an "Update indicators" setting, which lets you turn these indicators off.

Posted by: Vijay Bangaru, Product Manager, Google Docs

A couple weeks ago, we launched a multi-file uploader to make it much easier for you to put files into the cloud. Today we're launching a new feature to make it much easier to get your content out.

That's right, it's our first major offensive on the Data Liberation Front: "Convert, Zip and Download."

Select one or more files and then click on "Export" from the "More Actions" menu. Next, pick the format (e.g. PDF, Microsoft Word, etc) you want for your exported files. Finally, click "Continue" and we'll give you a nice zip file to download that has all your content.



For now, you can "export" up to 500 MB of content in a single zip file, which is over 20,000 typical files. Sometimes it takes us a few minutes to export really large amounts of files, so instead of making you wait, we added an "Email when ready" option. We'll send you a link when the zip file is ready.

We've made some other improvements to Docs as well. We've added indicators on whether you've "viewed" an item or not. "Unviewed" files are in bold, while "viewed" files are not. You can toggle this setting by selecting the item and clicking on "Mark as (Un)Viewed" in the "More Actions" menu.

We rounded out this feature with a "New!" indicator that is displayed when items are initially shared to you. So when an item is first shared to you, it will be bold ("Unviewed") and marked as "New!". Once you view this item, the item is listed normally. And, of course, when the item is updated by someone else, we mark it as "Unviewed" again.



Give the features a whirl and let us know what you think.

Posted by: Vijay Bangaru, Product Manager, Google Docs

Today, we are happy to announce the updates to the Google Docs docs list that we promised in July. We're rolling out these updates gradually, so they should be available to everyone soon. The biggest update is the introduction of shared folders -- far and away the most requested Google Docs feature. Shared folders work how you would expect them to and we hope they will make it easier for teams and groups to collaborate on documents together.


To share a group of items, all you have to do is put them all into a folder and share the folder. As you'd expect, if you add an item to a shared folder, it will automatically be shared and if you add someone to an existing shared folder, they will instantly get access to all of the folder's content.

We've also made it easy to upload multiple items to Google Docs. Instead of picking one file at a time, our new upload page lets you choose multiple files and upload them simultaneously, in just a couple of steps.

First click on "Select files to upload" and use "Shift" or "Ctrl" to pick multiple files. Then press "Start upload". We added progress bars so you'll be able to watch the upload as it progresses.


We've also brought back "Items not in folders" (under "More searches"), based on your feedback.

On the whole, "Items not in folders" works the same

• When you create an new item or an item is directly shared to you, it's in "Items not in folders".
• When an item is shared to you via a folder, it's not in "Items not in folders".
• When you add an item to a folder, it will no longer be in "Items not in folders".
• When you remove an item from all its folders, it will once again be in "Items not in folders".

Since many of you have been using this view as a workflow tool (perhaps you keep drafts and to-do's "not in folders" and then when they are done, move them to a folder), we've made one change to ensure the filter functions as expected in light of the new shared folders. If you share an item with me and I put it in a shared folder, it is still in your "Items not in folders" view. The reason is that I shouldn't be able to change your workflow. As a result, you'll occasionally see an item with a folder tag in your "Items not in folders" view. This is an item that someone else put in a shared folder, but you've never put in a folder.

And finally, we've also updated the look of the interface. For the most part, we changed colors, spacing and moved some buttons around, but we also improved the old "Move to" dialog. The new "Folders" dialog let's you completely control which folder or folders an item is in. And when you're in a folder, you also have the "Move to" dialog which lets you quickly move an item to a different folder.

Please try out the new features and let us know what you think.

Posted by: Vijay Bangaru, Product Manager, Google Docs

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:
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