Insider’s Guide to Using Google Docs, Sheets and Slides at Work

Ritcha Ranjan, a product manager at Google who helped build Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides from the ground up, has shared her top five tips on how to use them more effectively at work (via FastCompany). Ranjan says she has been using these tools every single day, often to write product requirements docs for Google’s next feature, while giving an insider look at incorporating Google Docs into your own work.

Google

Design Professional-Grade Documents in Google Docs

She suggests using a variety of fonts and not use Arial out of habit, and says that you can use built-in themes, professionally designed templates and take advantage of a large suite of formatting features you may not even know exist. “Our goal in adding these features has been to make creating beautiful, polished documents and presentations a breeze”. 

Turbocharge Google Sheets With Powerful Functions And Pivot Tables

Ranjan notes that Google Sheets is way more than just a way to throw a quick table or list together. It has over 340 powerful functions, including dozens that other spreadsheets don’t offer, such as Google Translate, which lets you automatically translate one language to another. “We’ve also designed Sheets to offer advanced pivot table functionality, including the ability to define custom Calculated Fields. And Docs and Sheets both support custom scripting and advanced API functionality via Apps Script.”

Present Painlessly To Groups With Google Slides

With just a couple taps on your phone or tablet, you can use the iOS or Android Slides apps to present on any screen equipped with Chromecast or AirPlay. And if you’re on a Hangouts video call, the mobile apps let you present directly to everybody in the call—no more wires and set-up stress.

Use Google Docs While You’re Offline

Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides work offline in the Chrome browser on your laptop as well as in the Android and iOS apps.

Hook Google Docs Up With Loads Of Other Apps

Both Google Sheets and Slides have announced new feature-rich APIs at Google I/O this year. Salesforce, SAP Anywhere, Sage, Anaplan, Asana, Trello, Prosperworks, and others will soon all be launching rich integrations with Sheets or Slides over the next few months, giving you access to all the functionality, no matter which app you’re using.

These are a few of the nifty things you can do with Docs, Sheets, and Slides to improve how you work, communicate, and interact. If you have any other ideas, please do share with us in the comments section.

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