Category: Google Sheets

Big changes are coming in the latest update to Google Sheets for Android, web and iOS.  There are some nice formatting options that are coming to the app but probably the bigger news is that the Android app will have mouse support for the new breed of Chromebooks that run Android apps.

From a formatting perspective, Sheets will now have the ability to rotate text (this is found under Format>Text rotation) to make your spreadsheet cleaner and more visually appealing.  For example, you could rotate column headers 90-degrees so that they are vertical instead of wide across the column top.  This means you can make those columns more narrow.  Add to that, finally, the ability to format numbers in Accounting style.  This is one of those “why wasn’t it there before?” features but hey, it’s here now.  Under Format>Number>Accounting, you can change your numbers into this format for easier and more consistent reports on budgets and other financial spreadsheets.

Rounding out the formatting updates are new border styles.  There are several new border styles in the app that have various thicknesses and double borders.  These are all found under Toolbar>Borders>Border styles.

The big changes though and probably the more exciting ones for most are the changes to the Android (and iOS app) app for Sheets.

Users of Google Docs, Sheets and Slides on Android will find minor updates rolling out for each of the productivity apps.  For the most part, these updates are bug fixes and performance improvements but in the case of Google Docs and Google Slides, there are new features in each.  For Docs, you now have the ability to add page numbers to a document from the app.  You have been able to do this in Docs on the web for a long time but it has finally made its way to the Android app for the sake of feature parity.

For Google Slides, the ability to import and export OpenDocument formatted files (.odp) has been added to the presentation app.

If you are a user of Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, there is a small but nice new update that is rolling out to the web version of these apps.  Google announced yesterday that they are adding the ability for users to see file information on a document that they have open in one of the apps.  This is very similar to a feature that is already in the online version of the apps which is to see file or folder in Google Drive.  It has just been added to the Docs apps for convenience.

Getting to this new file information is pretty straight forward.  Open up a Docs, Sheets or Slides file and from the File menu select Document Details.  This will pop up an overlay that shows you the location within your Google Drive that the file is stored, the owner of that file and the last time it was modified.

If you run a business or are responsible for creating Financial Statements, life just got a little bit easier for you.  The Google Apps team has announced that a new Financial Statement template is available in Google Sheets, both for the web and mobile versions of the app.  The template comes from the accounting software company Xero and is designed to take your inputs and generate the statements.

Simply access the Financial statements template from the Sheets homescreen, and get started by entering and categorizing your business transactions. The template will automatically update charts and graphs illustrating your company’s sales, expenses, revenue, and more.

This template should speed things up a lot of Google Sheets users who need to make these financial statements.

The Google Apps team have announced some new editing features for both Google Docs and Google Sheets.  These new features are coming to the apps on both Android and iOS and should be rolling out to devices over the course of the next few days via an OTA update.  Both features are aimed at bringing more desktop-like editing features to the mobile device so you don’t necessarily have to be at a Chromebook, PC or Mac.

For Google Docs, you can now edit documents while you are in Print Layout view within the app.  To edit the doc, just tap on the edit pencil icon and you can make your edits without having to leave Print Layout view.

A new update to Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides is hitting the Google Play Store that brings a more effortless way to get to your files while you are offline.  In the update, recent files you have been working on are automatically downloaded to your device so you will have them when you are offline.  Right now, if you want to work on a file while you are offline, you have to flag that file to download to your device.  If you forget, you are out of luck until you get back online.  This new feature removes this manual step.