This means:Īll of your documents are available online wherever there is an Internet connection. Google Docs is a similar, scaled-down version of Microsoft Word, except it resides online. Plus, any changes you make are lost as soon as you change something and then hit the “save” button. When you use something like Microsoft Word or LibreOffice, the files you save are only saved on the computer you are working on (unless you save them to a cloud storage solution such as Dropbox). Everything is seamlessly integrated and can be used together - all with a single account.īut do you really know everything there is to know about Google Docs? We’ll soon find out. Secondly, Google Docs is powered by other Google services (translate, search, fonts, images, etc). They won’t wake up one morning to find the service suddenly shuttered. So people feel reassured about transferring their important work to the service and leaving it there. One, it is a huge monolith of a company with universal brand recognition that will not likely go bankrupt anytime in the next century. In my view, Google Docs has two main strengths.

Along with Spreadsheets, Slides, Forms, and Drawings, Google has built a huge and formidable productivity suite rival to Microsoft, which used to rule this corner of the IT industry with very little competition to speak of. Google Docs is one of the cornerstones of Google’s Office offerings, and despite Google’s penchant for haphazardly shutting down its services, it has so far been one of the ones still left standing since it was bought by Google in 2006.

Google docs for beginners