FIELD GUIDE

18 Quick Tricks for Google Docs

David Nield
9/21/16 9:58am

Behind the clean and tidy interface sported by Google’s online office apps,
there are all kinds of features and tools you might not yet have stumbled
across—and some of them can seriously improve your productivity. Here are
18 of our favorite quick tricks that won’t take long to learn but which will
come in handy time and time again.

1) Add words to the dictionary

If you’re tired of always seeing your company’s strangely spelled name
appear with a red line underneath it, click Tools then Personal dictionary to
tell Google Docs to ignore it in the future.

2) Paste formats inside documents

One of the most useful features added to Google Docs recently is the Paint
format icon, which you can see to the left of the zoom indicator (it looks like
a paint roller). Highlight some text, click the icon, then highlight some more
text to copy the styling over.

3) Tag someone in a comment

Adding comments is all well and good (and very easy in Google Docs), but
how can you be sure someone else has seen them? If you type the plus (“+”)
symbol in a comment, followed by an email address, that person gets an alert
telling them they’ve been tagged.

4) Manage long documents with bookmarks

Google Docs lets you put markers down inside documents so you can more
easily find your way around big files. Go to Insert then Bookmark to place
one and get the link to it. Use Insert and Link to link to your bookmarks (if
you’re building a table of contents, say).

5) Get started quickly with templates

Earlier this year Google added a bunch of fancy new templates to Drive, but
depending on how you use the online apps you might not have seen them.
Head to the landing pages for Docs, Sheets or Slides to get a look at the
templates available to base your work around.

6) Link between documents

Did you know when placing hyperlinks inside documents you can link to
other files in Google Drive as well as external websites? Click the link button
on the toolbar, then instead of pasting a web URL, type out the name of the
document you want to link to.

7) Put images inside spreadsheet cells

Type “=image(“URL”) into any cell inside Sheets to drop a picture inside the
cell itself. Add a number (e.g. “=image(“URL”, 1)) for formatting: 1 is image
scaled, 2 is image stretched, 3 is keep the original size and 4 is custom size
(so “image(“URL”, 4, 1600, 900) for example).
8) Quickly fill a cell series

You can save yourself a lot of typing by letting Sheets do the work for you.
Highlight the first cells in a column containing a series (such as days of the
week or successive numbers), then drag down the blue handle in the bottom
right corner to continue it.

9) Go back to earlier versions

For those times when undo doesn’t cut it, you can roll back to earlier versions
of any type of document with the help of the See revision history entry on
the File menu. At the foot of the revision list you can show or hide changes,
and see a more detailed log of edits.

10) Put line breaks inside a spreadsheet cell

Google Sheets isn’t necessarily the best place for your advanced text layouts,
but there are a few tricks worth knowing if you are dropping text in alongside
your numbers. One of them is the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Enter (or
Cmd+Enter) which inserts a line break.
11) Do some quick number crunching

Highlight a series of cells in Sheets and down in the lower right-hand corner
of your spreadsheet you’ll see the total figure has been added up for you—
click on the sum total and you can quickly get the average, count, and
maximum and minimum values too.

12) Save charts as images

Got a winning chart you just can’t wait to share with the world? If you’re
emailing someone or preparing a presentation then an image might work
better than a Sheets link. Click the drop-down menu inside the chart itself
then choose Save image from the list.

13) Quickly move slides around

In Google Slides, as with Docs and Sheets, there are a ton of handy keyboard
shortcuts that can save you some time. We won’t list them all but Ctrl+Up
and Ctrl+Down (using the cursor keys) let you quickly reposition the current
slide (replace Ctrl with Cmd on a Mac).

14) Edit images inside slides

You can easily edit images right inside slides: right-click and choose Image
options to see what’s available inside the app. If you want to change the
shape of one of your imported pictures, use the drop-down menu next to the
crop button on the toolbar at the top.

15) Match images to your presentation

The image import feature in Slides (and Docs and Sheets) is more advanced
than you might realize: head over to the Search tab inside the image import
box and you can look for pictures with a particular dominant color, to fit in
with the theme of your presentation.

16) Find the right fonts

If you’re looking for the perfect font for a presentation (or indeed a document
or spreadsheet) you don’t have to settle for the default set. If you click the
font drop-down menu on the toolbar then you’ll notice a More fonts link you
can take advantage of.

17) Present on a Chromecast

One of the easiest ways of getting your carefully crafted presentation up on
the big screen is via a Chromecast dongle on your network. Click the drop-
down menu next to Present, then choose the Present on another screen
option, then pick your device from the list.

18) Duplicate objects quickly

If one of your Slides calls for more than one of a particular object then there’s
a quick way to duplicate something that’s already on screen. Hold down Ctrl
(or Cmd on a Mac) then click and drag it with the mouse. It works on text
boxes as well as images and shapes.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Nield David Nield

Contributor