These Freeware notes are published in TAGGology,
our Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group
(UVTAGG) monthly newsletter, and are posted
on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
where
there may be updates, corrections, or additions.
GOOGLE DOCS AND GOOGLE DRIVE
Google Docs is a free office program that is built
into Google. You must have a Google account
(free) and you already have one, if you have a
gmail address. It uses your Google account
and has programs to create and edit text documents
(Docs), presentations (Slides), and spreadsheets
(Sheets). The programs in it don’t
have all the bells and whistles of full versions
of these programs, but that makes them easier to
use. They are geared more for personal use
than for big business use, but anyone can use them
for free. Each free account has 15 gigabytes
of storage space in Google Drive where Google Docs
stores your files and, if you need more space, you
can buy more, but 15 gigabytes stores a lot of
normal-size files. When you install Google
Docs, it puts icons for the three programs, Docs,
Slides, and Sheets, on your desktop, so clicking
on one opens your default browser and asks for
your Google account If you leave your Google
account active in the background, clicking on an
icon takes you directly to the program. If
you have installed Google Docs, but don’t
have the icons on your desktop and want them, just
open the 9x9-dot Google Apps icon (upper right
corner of the Google screen) and drag the ones you
want onto your desktop. In these Freeware
Corner notes I will only describe the Windows
version of Google Docs, but I imagine the Mac
version is similar.
GOOGLE DOCS TUTORIALS
There are many helpful and free Google Docs
tutorials online. A website with several
that are helpful and easy to follow is the
following -- http://www.gcflearnfree.org/googledocuments
. BTW, to make a URL into an active link in
a document in Google Docs, such as in that last
sentence, just highlight the URL, click Ctrl-C to
put it on the clipboard, and either right-click
and use the URL menu option, or else click on the
URL icon (chain links - “Insert Link”)
on the toolbar. Now, when your document is
viewed (see below), this will be an active link
for people to click on.
DOCUMENTS
These are text files such as you make and edit in
LibreOffice or Microsoft Word or other word
processors. When you open the Google Docs
screen you see the files you have set up. If
you have set up folders to include some of your
documents, click on the Folder (upper right
corner) to open that and see the documents
inside. Clicking on any document opens it
ready to edit. You can change a
document’s format properties such as
margins, text font, size, mode, and viewing size
on the screen, by clicking on File > Page
Setup. This allows you to change the
properties just for this document or, by clicking
on Set as Default, it sets these are default for
all new documents. Of course, you can easily
change them again whenever you want. To
start a new document click on the Plus
“+” icon at the lower right corner or
else right-click and select New in the Context
Menu (the “Right-Click menu”).
You never have to worry about saving a document in
Google Docs since it saves them automatically; in
fact, there is no Save button at all. To
copy and paste something requires that you install
the Google Drive app, which, if you don’t
already have it installed in that browser, when
you highlight and click to save something, you
will be asked to approve it and then it will be
installed. In the upper right corner is a
Mode icon (a pencil) with three options, editing,
showing suggestions, and viewing mode. When
you are writing you are in Editing mode. The
Suggestions mode gives helps and ideas as it sees
what you are doing. The Viewing mode shows
what the document will look like when you are
done, so you can check your formatting and the
Internet links.
The standard Windows commands work, e.g. Ctrl-A
copies everything to the clipboard, Ctrl-X copies
and deletes the original text, and Ctrl-V pastes
whatever is on the clipboard into the location at
the cursor. There are templates that you can
select and modify for various tasks, e.g. to
produce a newsletter or other type document.
Google Docs has a Sort icon at the top right of
the documents screen to see the list of your files
sorted in various ways, such as by name or
size. To form folders and subfolders to
organize your files go to Google Drive (an icon in
the 9x9 app box in the upper right corner), click
on New Folder, rename it, and move files into
it. These will then be in folders in the
Docs screen and will be shown in Google Docs when
you click on the Folder icon (upper right).
Google Docs has a find function that allows you to
search for given text within all documents in
various places of your Google Drive
account. There is also a
search-and-replace function to correct the word or
phrase in all files. This is especially
helpful to make corrections in many files, for
example, a letter collection in which you want to
find and add editorial comments about some person
in all the letters.
Since your Google docs are not stored on your
computer, but online in your Google account, there
may be times when you want a copy on your own
computer. Just right-click on such a
document, select Download, tell it the format for
your downloaded copy, and it will be placed on
your computer for you to use. Of course, any
changes you make to the downloaded copy will not
be in the online version.
To include pictures or tables in a document, click
on Insert > Image or Insert > Table.
For tables it shows a small table and allows you
to move your cursor to select the number of rows
and columns you want. Here’s an
example of a 3x2 table. To enter information
just click in a cell and start typing.
This is the first cell.
These cells are "rubber", that is, the height changes as you type more into it.
IMPORTING FILES
You can import text files, that is, .doc, ,docx,
.txt, .rtf, etc., into Google Docs, but in some
cases you lose formatting since Google Docs just
has simple formatting properties. However,
for working on a document with a group, it might
be helpful to work in Google Docs to get the
wording accurate and then copy it into LibreOffice
for the final formatting. To import a file
you first upload it to Google Drive by moving or
copying it to that icon or space. With the
file in Google Drive right clicking on it opens
the Context Menu where you can select Google Docs
to open the file. It will be converted to
Google Docs format and saved in your Google Docs
list. This procedure will convert Microsoft
files and even pdf files, but you may lose some of
the formatting. In Google Drive the original
file is available in the original format, but it
won’t be sync’d with any changes you
make to it in Google Docs.
SHARING FILES
You can easily “share” a file with
someone else by opening it and clicking on the
Share button (upper right corner). It will
ask for their name and email address and what you
want to say in your email to them. It sends
them your email note with an invitation to view
and/or edit the document, whichever you
selected. When you share and allow editing
with one or more people, they each have access to
see and edit the document, so you can all work on
the same document at the same time and each sees
all the changes as they occur.
CONCLUSIONS
Google Docs has some helpful uses in genealogy and
is worth learning. It uses enough of the
standard text commands from Windows that most
things will come naturally, if you already know
another word processor. Google Drive and
Google Docs make your files available to you on
any computer connected to the Internet, so you
don’t even have to carry a flash
drive. And you can save files from a FHC,
for example, to your Google Drive account and
access them at home. However, relying on the
Internet is sometimes risky, so you probably want
a backup storage method anyway. In later
Freeware Corner articles I will discuss more about
Google Drive, Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets.