Getting Started with Google Docs

Creating word processor documents, or simply “documents” and spreadsheets is simple in this Google tool. To get started using Google Docs, point your Web browser to http://docs.google.com. From the Google Docs Web site, you can create new word processing documents, new spreadsheets, and upload existing word processing documents from many popular office automation tools such as Open Office and Microsoft Word so you can continue working on them using Google Docs products.

You can start creating new documents or send your existing documents to Google to continue editing them online. There are advantages to this strategy. One immediate advantage is the ability to share your document with others and allowing them to assist in making changes. You control who has access. Another advantage is that uploading files to Google puts them in a form of safe storage. You can never seem to back up their hard drive enough. Google takes excellent care to maintain backups, both in its equipment and its file storage. It also frees up disk space on your own computer, although with today’s huge hard drives that’s usually not an issue. Google Docs allows you to upload documents in Word, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text format.

Tip 

If you’ve never heard of OpenOffice, it’s worth a look. You can learn more at www.openoffice.org.

Once you load the Google Docs Web page, the first thing you’ll notice is that it has the familiar Google Search box at the top of the page. With this search box, you can search through all your word processing and spreadsheet documents online, or search the Web (see Figure 18.1). Log in to your Google account to use these applications.

Figure 18.1: Create new office automation documents online.