Google Office

Unknown“Work with any file, on any device, any time.” That’s Google’s goal with its new and existing suite of productivity tools. There’s already Google Docs and Google Sheets (think Microsoft Word and Excel, respectively, but for FREE). Now Google Slides allows you to edit (Power Point) presentations on the go! Those three services/apps coupled together is what I like to call Google Office. Courtesy of Google Drive’s Blog, Here’s the lowdown on what you can now do with Docs, Sheets, and Slides:

  1. You can truly get stuff done from any device—your iPhone, iPad, Android phone, Android tablet, laptop or desktop computer. Any change you make on any of these devices is saved automatically, so you can pick up right where you left off any time, anywhere that you can sign in. 

  2. The Docs, Sheets and Slides apps come with offline editing built right in. Just make the files you want to edit available offline. Any changes you make offline get automatically synced when you reconnect, just like when you make offline edits from your computer

  3. And while converting Office files to Docs, Sheets and Slides is a cinch, the new iPhone/iPad apps also let you edit Office files directly — just like on the Android apps and the web. 

Not many people use the Microsoft Office suite for personal use these days, unless of course you got a can get a good deal from your school or employer, mainly because these services have evolved so much over the years and the level of flexibility it allows greatly supersedes what Microsoft has to offer. In fact, Google has become my defacto way to create and share documents. Google even has a pretty substantial library of templates you can leverage to get started: some documents originate from Google but any user can upload and share their “best-in-class” templates for the rest of the world to enjoy (think budgets, resumes, etc.) Enjoy!