Bruceclay.com - Google Docs Gets Best Feature Ever

« Google Is Not the Government, Nor My Mother | Main | Seeking Out Failure »

May 22, 2008

Google Docs Gets Best Feature Ever

Posted by Lisa Barone

There are some moments in your life that help you to see just how geeky you've really become. Mine came just a few moments ago when I stumbled up on the Google Operating System's post Print Layout in Google Docs.

No, go read the title of that post again.

Did your heart just skip a beat? Did your toes wiggle in excitement? Did you have to immediately share your excitement with someone? No? Then I'm totally way geekier than you are.

I've always loved the idea of Google Docs. Having access to my document wherever I go, regardless of what machine I'm on, is something that as a writer I'm a really big fan of. However, I could never get myself to use the darn thing because of the funky wide screen format. Seriously, I can't tell you how many bar conversations I've had about my frustrations with Google Docs viewing options (this solidifies the geek thing, doesn't it?). Maybe Microsoft has me completely brainwashed, but knowing how far along I am on a page helps me to visualize and plan out what I'm writing. With the old version of Google Docs I wasn't able to do that. I would just write from one side of the screen to the other forever and forever with no end in sight. Google to the rescue!

By heading to the View options in Google Docs and then selecting Fixed-Width Page View, users can easily make their Google Docs page resemble Microsoft Word. See the pretty?

Unfortunately, there are still no page breaks and I can't view any type of custom margins, but I'll take what I can get. With this one feature addition, Google Docs may have just become my word processing client of choice. Google, FTW!

Posted at May 22, 2008 5:19 PM
View related entries in: Blogging, Google

Comments

Lisa,

We support page breaks (and page numbering) as well in Zoho Writer if you are looking for that feature.

Raju

Posted by: Raju Vegesna at May 22, 2008 7:24 PM

Lisa, seconding Raju (and broadening the props for the whole Zoho suite). It runs serious rings around GDocs, and even has top-drawer CRM and Invoicing modules.

(No stake in the company. Just an immensely satisfied user.)

Posted by: TriExpert at May 23, 2008 7:51 AM

Wow, you are a geek. I'll bet you get excited when shopping for pens and notepads, too. That being said, this is some seriously exciting news. Even more exciting than the sale that OfficeMax had on Zebra F-301s last week.

Posted by: Bill D at May 23, 2008 8:03 AM

@Raju & TriExpert: Okay, you got me. I will have to give Zoho a try and see these circles it does around GDocs myself!

@Bill: Don't think I won't hunt you down and kick you. ;)

Posted by: Lisa at May 23, 2008 8:48 AM

Bill D, what's wrong with getting excited about shopping for pens and notepads? That's what I used to do for fun in high school! (Now I internet shop for laptops instead.)

What I really want from GDocs is for it to stop auto-formating spaces between paragraphs as double spaced. That's too much room!

Posted by: Susan Esparza at May 23, 2008 8:50 AM