Update: Google Docs just got a handy spell check boost — here’s how it works.
Google’s online services are enjoying a bit of an upgrade spree at the moment. Gmail is getting a big redesign and Gdrive is getting a big search upgrade to save you time. And now Google Docs and Sheets are both going to see some major changes as well.
The upgrade is officially called “Smart canvas” and is designed to help boost your productivity. The new features here include the option to add a summary to your document, and offering other readers an overview of what’s involved.
New pageless documents
Also incoming are pageless documents, and an AI-powered system that lets you blend multiple tools together and promotes additional ways of remote collaboration. Considering how people are increasingly working from remote locations, these sorts of changes are going to be crucial if people are going to effectively work together virtually.
The great thing about pageless documents is that those meddlesome page breaks won’t end up disrupting the flow of your work. That makes it easier to include images, tables, and other non-text content that would otherwise cause an ugly split or excessive blank space.
However, you will be able to restore page breaks, should you ever need to print a document or convert it to a more page-centric format like PDF.
Google Docs is also going to let you select the text width of a document, with narrow, medium, and wide options to choose from. The pageless format will likewise be able to fit whatever sized screen you’re using.
These features are all rolling out now. A new easy-access email draft template, which lets you click a single button to export content into a Gmail draft, will be arriving “in the coming weeks."
Google Sheets upgrades
Meanwhile, Sheets is enhancing its AI-generated formula suggestions, with something Google says is more akin to autocorrect. But for math, instead of innocently trying to filter out your excessive cursing.
Officially “coming soon," this new feature promises to help users troubleshoot their formulas, and spot any pesky errors ahead of time.
