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Google Spreadsheet: Copy Sheets Between Files

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Google Spreadsheet continues to rapidly mature.  You can now copy a Sheet from one spreadsheet to another.  This feature increases your ability to manage data, distribute sheets for gathering information, and organize your information

Learn more …

Did you miss these Google Docs updates?

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Over the past several weeks and months, Google has released many updates to Google Docs.  While the big updates — such as uploading of any file type — get a lot of attention, here are a few that you may have missed:

  • Thumbnail View in the Docs List
    • By selecting the this view for your document list, you can now see a thumbnail image of your document when viewing the list or searching.  When combined with search by relevance, the thumbnail view makes it really easy to find the file you’re looking for.
  • Spelling correction when searching for a doc
    • When searching for a document, the search bar now recognizes common misspellings and prompts you for corrections.
  • Upload any file limit increased from 250MB to 1GB
    • When uploading a file that you are not converting to Google Docs formats, the size limit is now 1GB.

You can learn more about these features here.

Google Docs’ “Upload Any File” Has Limitations

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In January, Google announced that users can upload files of any time and save them in Google Docs.  With 1GB of space per user, the feature provides limited ability to begin using Google Docs as a file server.

The API implementation — the interface used by programmers — has limitations beyond those in the end user web interface.

  • Only Google Apps Premier Edition allows uploading files of any type, without conversion, to Google Docs.  Somewhat surprisingly, this feature is not available for the Education Edition users.
  • File sizes are limited to 250 MB

What this means is that programs built for the commercial sector will not work for educational institutions and non-profits using Google Apps Education Edition.

W e suspect there are many factors in this decision.  One such issue may be that the Education Edition is free and Google has not yet announced if/how Education Edition users will be able to purchase more space.   Time will tell if this limitation is temporary or part of a larger plan.

File Server or File Service?

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Most organizations store and share files by setting up one or more file servers.  They used to be referred to as “File and Print Servers”, but as most printers include direct network connectivity, spooling, and job management features, the need to have print spooling and drivers running on a server has nearly disappeared.

File servers seem to be heading in the same direction.

Disk space no longer needs a physical connection to a server with a full operating system. Disk drive control, security, access rights, and I/O management can be delivered directly by storage area networks (SANs), network attached storage (NAS), and cloud storage solutions.

What happens when storage is further abstracted?

Gladinet (http://www.gladinet.com) has a series of tools that lets you attaché multiple, independent cloud storage systems and accounts and presents them as top level folders on a mapped drive. OffiSync gives you access to Google Docs and Google Sites storage from toolbars/ribbons in the MS Office applications (avoiding mapped drives and windows explorer altogether). While Gladinet extends the model of OS-based storage management, OffiSync moves storage management directly into the application.

In its infancy, cloud storage services are giving us the opportunity to rethink the positioning and role of storage within operational architectures – in the cloud and in our data centers. File servers feel nearly obsolete as storage becomes a commodity and access control migrates from the operating system to the applications themselves.

Quick Tip: PDF files on Sites

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To make using Google Sites easier, PDF files attached to pages and file cabinets can now be previewed with the Google Docs viewer so no need to download the file.

Improved Email Formats for Document Sharing

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To help clarify communications when sharing documents, Google Apps now generates emails with color coding and new formats.  The messages are designed to give more visual clues to the recipient as to the type, number, and name of the documents.

Shared documents, spreadsheets, and presentations are defined by blue, green, and red coloring.

When sharing multiple documents, users new receive a clear list of document titles as links to open each document.

You can see snapshots of the new mail formats here.

Back to the drawing board?

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Google recently removed the ability to email a document into your Google Docs account.  The little-used feature is being re-vamped to increase functionality and expand the number of supported file types.

Google Docs: Better Sharing, Export, and Search

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It is now easier to find, export, and share documents from Google Docs.  Here is how.

Export All as a zip file:

Select one or more files and then click on “Export” from the “More Actions” menu. Next, pick the format (e.g. PDF etc) you want for your exported files. Here you now also have the option to “Export all your files” up to 2GB into a single zip file. It can sometimes take a few minutes to download so you also have an “email when ready” option to notify you when the zip file is ready. If your files are larger than 2GB then Docs will present a list of those that weren’t exported and you can export them to a zip file as normal.

Email as an attachment:

In the Docs list, select an item, click “Share” and select “Email as attachment…”. Then pick which format you want to use to send the item, compose your email, and click send.

Improved search:

Search for a document from the Docs list as normal. In the displayed results, click on the new button “Relevance” which lets you decide whether you’d like to sort your Docs list by “Relevance,” “Starred” or “Last Modified”.

Memeo Connect is Not Ready for Prime Time, Yet.

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With the recent updates to Google Docs, users of Google Apps Premier and Education Editions can now save files of any time.  Added with the ability to affordably increase storage space, Google Apps is becoming a viable hosted file service.

To integrate Google Docs with end users’ local systems, several companies are building solutions, including Memeo.

After testing MemeoConnect and working through several support calls, we cannot recommend this as a solution … yet.  The software is lacking features we consider critical for usability.  Here is what we learned:

  • After starting MemeoConnect and entering our Google Apps credentials, the connection does not always happen.  Once in the software, there is now way to see why the state is disconnected and there is now way to attempt to reconnect.  You must exit and start over.  Also, when the connection does work, it often disconnects after some period of time without notice.  Our ability for MemeoConnect to initiate and stay connected to Google Apps was only about 40%.
  • When you pick a desktop or network folder to synchronize with  Google Docs, MemeoConnect automatically pulls in all subfolders.  You cannot granularly select just a folder.  As such, we ended up with drafts and previous versions of documents we did not want in Google Docs.
  • When moving documents up to Google Docs, everything ends up in the Root folder.  MemeoConnect does not create folders to mimic those on your desktop or server, and we could not figure out any way to tell MemeoConnect where to place the folders.
  • Once you add a folder to the sync process, there is no means to remove it.  Per a response from MemeoConnect, the only way to remove a folder from the sync list is to uninstall MemeoConnect and reinstall.   Not the most friendly or usable solution.
  • There is no means to see which local or network folders are setup to sync with Google Docs.

Surely, we expect Memeo will address these shortcomings in upcoming releases, at which time we will retest and review again.

One longer term concern, though, is the model.  MemeoConnect becomes another tool users must use to manage files.    Working locally and saving files to Google Docs using MemeoConnect still requires users to save locally, then run a program to ensure the file is copied up to Google Docs.  And, if the tool is not running, the synchronization does not happen.

Our preference is for tools that let you save to Google Docs and Sites from within your applications and for tools that you can setup to manage synchronization without additional user activities.

More Viewing Options for Google Docs

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Google recently added a few features to Google Docs that give you more options when opening and viewing documents.

You can now open documents in a new browser tab or window… simply set the “Where items open” option.

Also, if you prefer, you can turn off the “new” and bold indicators in your document screen when documents are added or modified.

You can learn more here.