Thing#19 Web Applications (published from Google Docs)

Google Docs---Some Definite Advantages over Microsoft Officecn insert comments they r ahe top of the document, which is nice so you can see them at once ather than scrolling down to the bottom,-Daneda Heppner 1/24/09 10:19 AM
Google Docs looks a lot like Microsoft Office Word. One difference is that when you click File, New, you get options for a new document, spreadsheet, template or presentation as well. I opened a template for cute snowman address labels. I could select the snowman and delete it, but I didn't have success replacing it. I tried right clicking and choosing an option, then going to Insert, picture. I thought maybe it would give me an option for Microsoft clip art on my computer, but it didn't. It went to my personal jpg files. When I clicked on a picture to insert, it inserted the picture as the background for the whole page, not just the snowman. There may be some way to figure it out but I moved on. There were 161 template options: including Book Report, Parcel Labels, Fax Cover, Business Cards, Photo Calandar, Recipie Card, Lesson Plan, Resume, and Meeting Minutes.

I also looked at File, New, Presentation. It lets you create or download a slide show, but with some unique options. You can download a picture, then add a speech bubble to it and insert text (I created a text box in the speech bubble.) That adds a different dimension to the presentation, rather than adding text outside the picture.

I clicked File, Save to see what format this document would save as. I had the option to save either as an html file, a text file (*.txt), or a Web Archive, single file (*.mht). I wasn't familiar with the bottom option for the default "encoding Unicode (UTF-8)", but when I looked at the options, it looked right. It is an advantage to save it in the format you need for either the web or your desktop application.

I clicked on the Share tab, and was given the option to invite people either as collaborators or as viewers by entering their e-mail addresses.

There are only 12 Font styles to choose from, but that will be adequate for my use as I tend to pretty straightforward in my documents. I don't remember if Word has an option to create background color for text. This is nice, just like using a highlighter to emphasize a point.

Click here to see my blog. I wt to the link icon on the tool bar and created a link from this document to my blog post. It as cool to put it lyover; text that pops up when you pass your crsor ver the link. I had neer done that before and it gave me a feeling of empowerment.
I found Revision History when I was exploring the File options. You can see the exact time you made changes and what they were, which might be helpful if other people are working on the document as well, so you'd be able to know if the information was current.

Print Settings have the usual options, but also include the option to put in page numbers, include comments, or include footnotes. This would be helpful, because often I try to print out just the body of a site without the comments, and I end up guessing how many pages to print.

There were some nice features when I went to Edit, Document Styles. I could change the background color, the line spacing,
and view a larger sample of the Font type all in one place and easily change them. I noticed, however, that I couldn't click Undo to change them back. I had to go back into the Document Styles box to do it.

I could insert a picture from my files, or from a site I would select on the Internet, but could not connect to clip art on my pc. Here'a picture of my grandson on the cover of a magazine from a previous assignment.

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You can choose an image size when you insert it (small, large, thumbnail), and you can also choose your text placement around the image, in this case, to the right of the image. When I first downloaded the image, I couldn't change the size by dragging from the corner and have it maintain the correct proportions. I tried different options, and when I think when I finally chose to download as a thumbnail, I could make it smaller and maintain the correct proportions by dragging from the corner. I tried to click on File, Revision History to see if it would show if I had tried Thumbnail or not, but now I can't get it to show. I tried saving and then checking, but still can't get it to show.

Another great feature is that it is easy to insert a special character, such as the cent sign ¢ or the copyright symbol ©, which is useful for librarians. It wasn't this easy in Microsoft Word. You can also insert a Table of Contents using your paragraph headings I think, which would be a useful feature. You can insert a horizontal line, as seen above the picture, which might be useful for breaking the page up into sections.

There is an option to Insert a bookmark, but it is only as a shortcut to specific places within this document not to bookmarks for other websites. It can be used to create an index or table of contents.

You can click on the Share tab and choose to either publish as a web page on the Internet, or publish to your blog by adding your blog site settings and then posting to your blog. I will definitly be back to Google Docs to use many of the expanded features I've discovered today.

Document created for Thing#19