Google Docs is a free, web-based platform for creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. You can access it from any computer with a web browser and internet connection, and you can share documents with others to edit and work on together.
Nearly 23% of small businesses used Google Docs in 2015, and that number is growing. If your small business isn’t taking advantage of this free platform yet, read on to learn why it should be.
Google Docs offers all the capabilities of many high-dollar office suites, but it’s available for free on the cloud. It features a word processor, a spreadsheet app, and a presentation builder.
The word processor comes with a host of features including spell check, a word counter, voice-typing capabilities, the ability to insert pictures, charts, and tables into your document, and more. The spreadsheet app handles everything from simple graphs and tables to complex equations. Google Slides, the presentation app, lets you build professional-quality presentations in minutes and lets others collaborate on them remotely in real time.
Best of all, Google Docs is free to use, requiring only an internet connection and a web browser. Because it is cloud-based, you don't have to download anything onto your computer. Even the documents you create get automatically saved to the cloud and don't take up space on your computer, though you have the option of saving files onto your hard drive.
One of the best features of Google Docs is the ability to share documents you’re working on with remote employees and co-workers, so you can build and edit those documents together. It even has a colour-coded feature that shows you who's responsible for each edit, and it tells you when the last update was made to the document and at what time.
By combining Google Docs with Google Chat, you can efficiently build a spreadsheet or create a presentation with a group of co-workers in different cities or provinces just as if you were all sitting around the same conference table.
Ever gotten so wrapped up in typing out a long report that you forgot to save your work periodically, and then a power outage wiped out all your progress? That’s never a worry with Google Docs – the platform is constantly updating your work in real time and saving it to the cloud.
If you make an update to your work and then decide you prefer the way it looked before, you can scroll back through every edit you’ve made and restore a previous version of your document.
With apps for both iPhone and Android, Google Docs is available on the go. If you need a co-worker to edit a document but, you know they’re out of the office and travelling, you can send them a text and have them take care of it on their smartphone or tablet. Then, you can log in to your Google account and see the finished product in real time.
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