The Chronicler's Web (TCW)

by DAN CALLOWAY
Published 11 March 2010

WEAVERVILLE, NC – Have you tried Google Docs yet? Are you still creating documents on your computer using office suite applications and emailing them to friends, family, and co-workers using email clients? There’s a better way.

Now, with Google Docs, you can create documents, presentations, and spreadsheets online and share them with anyone you want.

Choose who can access your documents. Just enter the email addresses of the people with whom you want to share a given document and send them an invitation.

Share instantly. Anyone you’ve invited to either edit or view your document, spreadsheet or presentation can access it as soon as they sign in.

Edit and present with others in real time. Multiple people can view and make changes at the same time. There’s an on-screen chat window for spreadsheets, and document revisions show you exactly who changed what, and when. Viewing a presentation together is a breeze, as anyone joined in a presentation can automatically follow along with the presenter.

Create basic documents from scratch or start from a template. You can easily do all the basics, including making bulleted lists, sorting by columns, adding tables, images, comments, formulas, changing fonts and more. And it’s free.

Upload your existing files. Google Docs accepts most popular file formats, including DOC, XLS, ODT, ODS, RTF, CSV, PPT, etc. So go ahead and upload your existing files.

Familiar desktop feel makes editing a breeze. Just click the toolbar buttons to bold, underline, indent, change font or number format, change cell background color and so on.

Edit and access from anywhere. There’s nothing to download; you access your documents, spreadsheets and presentations from any computer with an Internet connection and a standard browser. And it’s free.

Safely store your work. Online storage and auto-save mean you needn’t fear local hard drive failures or power outages.

Easily save and export copies. You can save your documents and spreadsheets to your own computer in DOC, XLS, CSV, ODS, ODT, PDF, RTF and HTML formats.

Organize your documents. Easily find your documents by organizing them into folders. Drag and drop your documents into as many folders as you want.

Publish your work as a web page. You can publish your documents online with one click, as normal-looking web pages, without having to learn anything new.

Control who can see your pages. You can publish to the entire world, just a few people or no one — it’s up to you. (You can also un-publish at any time.)

Post your documents to your blog. Once you’ve created a document, you can post it to your blog.

Publish within your company or group. With Google Apps, it’s even easier to share important documents, spreadsheets and presentations within your company or group.

Watch the following videos about Google Docs and give Google Docs a try today. I think Google Docs will change the way you write and work.