Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
Search
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Applications
    • Applications
    • PC Hardware

    Google Carries Offline Access Ball Forward

    By
    Clint Boulton
    -
    April 28, 2008
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      Google continued its rapid cycle of innovation for its Docs trio of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications April 25.

      Weeks after allowing Google Apps users to view and edit word processing documents offline, the company has added the capability to view its spreadsheets and presentations offline.

      “You won’t need to worry about an unreliable Internet connection as you walk up to the front of the room to give your next presentation,” Google Marketing Manager Andrew Chang wrote in a blog post. “Just click on your Google Docs desktop icon and know that your presentations and spreadsheets will be stored on your computer, at your fingertips.”

      ../images/stories/videobug4.gifClick Here to Watch the Latest eWEEK Newsbreak Video.

      However, users will only see offline Docs if their domain administrators have enabled that function.

      So tell them to get on the ball and turn on the offline access. The ability to do the same work in-flight is quickly becoming necessary for knowledge workers to not only be effective while traveling or experiencing hot spots of low latency, but also to stay competitive.

      To enable offline access, Google Docs uses Google Gears, the company’s open-source browser extension. Gears allows Google Docs to leverage information stored on a computer’s hard drive rather than relying on information sent across the Internet.

      This means that when users are offline, their edits are stored on their computers. When users reconnect, their changes are synchronized with Google Docs’ servers.

      In other Google Docs news, Google has added a speaker notes utility for its presentation application, which seeks to compete with Microsoft’s PowerPoint. Presenters can print speaker notes in advance or put them in their own window when they present.

      In addition, because Web consumers can never get enough multimedia content, Google is also letting users put YouTube videos into slides in an effort to enrich presentations. Check out an example here.

      Some other changes to Docs didn’t even make it into the Google blogosphere but were kept clandestine in Google Groups posts.

      There is now “full sharing” from the Docs list, so that when users share documents from the Docs list, they have all their options in one place. Users can pick their collaborators and viewers, set permissions and see who else is already sharing the document by clicking the “Share” button.

      “Print settings” is now a separate menu choice, letting Docs users click print to see their PDF print dialog box. The Docs team also brought back the ability to print from a Web page.

      In other moves, more technical users can add CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to Google documents by clicking on the “Edit” menu and clicking on “Edit CSS.”

      Google Docs still isn’t as feature-rich as Microsoft Office or SharePoint, but it’s getting closer as each month passes.

      Whether these features are enough to help Google Apps pick up more market share among businesses is another story, but an important one as the computing world continues to turn to hosting software in the cloud.

      Avatar
      Clint Boulton

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      eWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      Zeus Kerravala - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      Wayne Rash - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Information

      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×