Google Updates Docs, Sheets and Slides With New Collaboration Features (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader writes: G Suite, Google's set of online productivity tools, is getting a major update today that adds a number of new features to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. Most of these updates focus around collaboration, but the service is also getting support for Google Cloud Search and the company is adding new templates and add-ons from partners like LegalZoom, DocuSign, LucidChart and others. [...] Google Docs Sheets and Slides now lets you track changes by saving multiple versions of a document with different names. The new integration with Google Cloud Search in Docs and Slides means that G Suite Business and Enterprise users will now be able to quickly find the right information from their internal documents without having to leave the editor.

Comments

Will web apps ever catch up with desktop apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Web 2.0 has been going on for almost a decade now. Over this time we've seen attempts made to build more and more complex web apps using technologies like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and AJAX. Yet despite all of this time, and all of this effort, these web apps typically can't even compete with the desktop apps we had in the mid 1990s. At this point I have to wonder, will web apps ever catch up to desktop apps? Will the capabilities of web apps ever match those of desktop apps? Will the performance of web apps ever match those of desktop apps? I'm really starting to doubt that they ever will catch up. It's like they will perpetually be second-class citizens when compared to real applications.

Re:Will web apps ever catch up with desktop apps?

[MightyMartian]

I don't really look at Google's office apps as competitors for Office or Libre/OpenOffice. They're pretty good for basic work, but if you're going to go to more complex usage scenarios, Google Docs or Sheets is definitely not the tool for you.

I use Google Apps for quicky documents and the like. It means I can access them on my phone, tablet or laptop without too much difficulty. But if I'm writing a lengthy report, I admit that I head on over to Word, because even if I can find some of the features in Google Docs, I find they can be far trickier to use than Word.

Re:Will web apps ever catch up with desktop apps?

[bluefoxlucid]

LibreOffice hemmorages on simple spread sheets and keeps locking up for several seconds to do auto-save. Google Sheets can't handle sheet-specific named ranges (it can, but won't create them, then dies when you try to mess with named ranges if there are sheet-specific named ranges).

I seriously am considering buying Excel.

Re:Will web apps ever catch up with desktop apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the real value add of gDocs is the ease of sharing.

Make a document, click share, add names of people you want to have edit privileges, then say anyone in the org can view. Bam, instant controlled documentation.

Re:Will web apps ever catch up with desktop apps?

[rtb61]

I thought the whole real purpose of those Google Apps, was so that Google could spy on those apps for corporate advantage and open collaboration was the key to spy into them, otherwise companies would keep their corporate trade secrets to themselves. A lot of that trade secret stuff isn't really all that complex and so the collaboration 'I Spy' software doesn't have to be all that good.

multiple versions of a document different names

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> lets you track changes by saving multiple versions of a document with different names

I thought "multiple versions of a document with different names" was one of the problems SOLVED by Google Docs. (No more trying to reconcile 4 people's personally edited documents into one master document.)

What, exactly, are they introducing and why?

Re:multiple versions of a document different names

[Anonymous Coward]

When you open a google doc, sheet or slide you can review the document history - they're allowing you to apply a label to the history now. Saves you making a document revision page for example.

Re:multiple versions of a document different names

[PCM2]

What, exactly, are they introducing and why?

You know how when you're playing a videogame, sometimes when you're worried that the next part might get tricky, you save your game so that you don't have to start over from the beginning when everything gets screwed up? They're doing that for documents. And you can give the "save points" names, so you know which one's which.

Re:multiple versions of a document different names

[Waffle Iron]

I've been saving multiple versions of documents under different names ever since the days of CP/M:

MEMO1.TXT
MEMO2.TXT
MEMO3.TXT
...

Re:They could just bring back Wave

[jfdavis668]

I liked Wave. Unfortunately, no one else did. Collaboration tools aren't very useful by yourself.

Any chance of charts in mobile apps?

[jpellino]

The new web based chart editor is nice.

Re:Any chance of charts in mobile apps?

[bluefoxlucid]

I'm still waiting for the editor to allow creation of new styles in Google Docs.

(exiting lazy mode) Yup!

[jpellino]

Charts in mobile is there.

Regression

[fermion]

The lack of scatter plot options basically has made it useless to me. I generally like the applications, but google has stopped regular updates.