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Google Docs's New Update Takes Aim at Microsoft Word - and Notion, Too (fastcompany.com) 30

Posted by msmash from the more-changes dept.
Google is continuing to give its document editing suite a more modern makeover. The latest update to Google Docs makes pageless documents available to all users after the company announced the feature last May. It also adds new features such as AI-generated document summaries, inline Google Maps previews, and the ability to draft emails with other users before transferring them over to Gmail. Most of those features are launching today, while email drafting will roll out in the "coming weeks." From a report: The update may be seen as part of a broader effort to compete with startups such as Notion and Coda, which are reimagining document editing around free-flowing, dynamic pages. Those products have also caught the attention of Microsoft, which announced an entirely new document editing app called Loop last November. While Google isn't fundamentally reinventing Docs in response, it's leaning on its ecosystem of other apps and services to make documents feel more dynamic and less like the printed page.

For most Google Docs users, the most striking change will be the new pageless format, which extends whitespace to both edges of the screen and dispenses with the page markers used for printing purposes. It also allows for a fully-responsive design, in which documents reflow when users adjust the size of their browser window. (Pagination will still be the default, but users can switch to pageless formatting under File > Setup.) Other changes won't be as immediately noticeable, but speak to where Google Docs -- and the Workspace suite as a whole -- are headed. Document summaries created using AI technology, for instance, will appear in a sidebar view where users can accept them or modify their text. When users hover over links to another document that includes a summary, it'll appear inside a pop-up preview window. [...] Google's also adding a way to draft Gmail messages inside Docs, so users can collaborate on messaging before passing the contents off to Gmail proper. And a recently-added Meeting Notes feature lets users pull in contacts, action items, and other details from Google Calendar events.
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Google Docs's New Update Takes Aim at Microsoft Word - and Notion, Too More

Google Docs's New Update Takes Aim at Microsoft Word - and Notion, Too

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  • It should be an option, but it's a terrible idea as a default.

    • I agree.
      It's a page layout program not a web page .

      Overall I prefer apples pages.

      The thing both pages and google docks lack is a decent endnote system. Zotero integration is lacking. While zotero itself is awesome compared to say endnote as a reference manager the people who run it are stubborn about saying they won't let it work with Apple till there's s an official api for pages . While they have a point there it's not actually hard to hack apples format in a way to make it work so I wish they'd get of

    • Well, I can't think of a single time in my last 5 years of employment where I have impressed the contents of any document on to rectangular bits of dead trees.

      My documents are already usually divided into sections that are organized in a neat hierarchical structure. Why should I superimpose an additional set of unrelated breaks in the flow based on an arbitrary physical dimension that I never use?

      I'm sure that many, if not most, people are in a similar usage pattern these days.

      • Did you really just say "I don't use paper, therefore it must be obsolete" ?

        Myopic nerds are common around here but that takes the cake.

        • I said that many or even most people don't use printers, in answer to the OP's question about why pagelessness is good.

          I'm kind of surprised to get that response from someone with your sig, though. Maybe you should stop using them, too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rhipf ( 525263 )

        Hence the reason the OP suggested the pageless feature should be an optional setting. It doesn't really matter if this setting is on or off by default but if it is optional the both yourself and those that print documents are equally happy.

        Note: I have no idea if this is already an optional feature in the programs mentioned.

    • It should be an option, but it's a terrible idea as a default.

      Then I suppose it's a good thing the summary said:

      Pagination will still be the default, but users can switch to pageless formatting under File > Setup.

      I can't remember the last time I printed a document I worked on in a text editor. I still occasionally print forms or other documents I need to send in, but the documents I've written for the better part of at least a decade are digital-first and digital-only. They're created in software, shared in software, viewed in software, interacted with in software, and for all intents and purposes really only exist in software, so it's worth challenging the assumptio

    • Scrolls were very popular for about two thousand years. Next they will reinvent HTML again.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      The problem with page-oriented formats while editing is that it is fundamentally the wrong approach. It id document processing and documents only get divided into pages if needed. There is no need to see how it gets printed until the very last stage and when you know what the paper-size will be. Only then do you need to make a pass to adjust to that. Doing it before is wasted time and effort.

    • All websites are moving to the infinite scrolling model.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Why is paged good as a default? These days most document viewing is on screens, and the default A4/letter format isn't really suited to them. One of the most annoying things about PDFs is that they enforce layout.

      Compare that with the web, where HTML is just a set of hints about how to format information but ultimate freedom is given to the browser to make best use of the available screen space. Or at least that's how it's supposed to be, many shitty websites try to enforce their own ideas about layout.

  • G suite is terrible.

    I don't particularly like integrated document suites (LaTeX 4 lyfe, spreadsheets suck), and even I can tell it's awful. It's like someone ignored all the advances since about 1995 or so and stuck it on the web. Everything about it is somehow half-arsed or broken in some way if you do anything beyond the absolute basics.

    • Just face it. Your use case is very much off the typical user's. The world is full of half arsed people doing things in half arsed way and if it is free they will put up crap.

      All these years these ordinary users who never did anything more than draft and email were sold computers far more powerful for their use cases. That economy of scale reduced the cost for us, developers, non-half-arsed users, users who want more than the basics in a nicer way. Now the free ride is over.

      So the choice is yours. Pay

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Well, yes. But Word is pretty terrible these days as well. Hence G Suite may actually be an improvement in some ways.

  • Maybe they can also invert the map? I’ll provide the summary, and the AI will fill in the rest of the doc? That would be really helpful!

  • They should start by making it compatible with documents created in MS Office.

  • ...and the work is half done.

  • I expect a lot of humor, but its difficult to imagine how an AI can summarize a document other than maybe "Useless bureaucratic BS", but typically the first sentence is enough to determine that anyway.
  • If Google wanted to compete with Microsoft then they shouldn't be pushing customers away. I'm in the process of moving to Office 365 because the e-mail hosting is cheaper than what Google are going to charge me for having my own e-mail domain that I've had hosted on gmail for free since about 2008. I hate being forced to dramatically change long term setups. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. So bye Google.

  • I see, this is for one page memos.

    Thank you, I'll stay with LibreOffice, given my first novel that was published last year ran just over 120k words.

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