Google Docs

For all Google Docs support - click the link for access to Google Docs Help

Google Docs

Docs is Google’s answer to Microsoft Word, in your web browser or app. It is an online, collaborative word processor that is part of Google Drive and Google Workspace for Education. As long as you are connected to the internet, all your changes are saved instantly.

You can access Docs by going to docs.google.com or you will see your Docs files in your Drive.

Creating a new document

To create a new Docs file, simply type docs.new into the address bar at the top of your browser page.

In Drive, simply click the +New button or the Waffle button to launch Docs.

The Toolbar

The main toolbar along the top of a Docs window houses some key features that you probably won’t use each time but it’s extremely useful to know about. It also tells you when things are saved. As you type or make other changes, the All changes saved in Drive text will change to Saving… as you can see below.

File

  • Make a copy – Make a duplicate of the document you are in.

  • Download as – Download your document in other formats, such as Word or PDF.

  • Email as attachment – Send your document as an email, can attach as other formats, such as Word or PDF.

  • Version History – See all the changes you and others have made to the document or revert it to earlier documents.

Format

  • Text – Change the format of text including size, capitalisation and subscript.

  • Columns – Change the format of the document to allow columns of text.

  • Headers & Footers – Change the size of the header and footer.

Insert

  • Image – Insert an image from your computer, Google Images, Drive and more.

  • Table – Select the number of columns and rows to create and add a table.

  • Drawing – Create pictures, flowcharts, diagrams and more.

  • Link – Add a link to a webpage or location/bookmark in your document.

  • Bookmark – Add shortcuts to specific places within your document.

  • Table of contents – Create an auto generated table of contents that links to each heading (where you’ve applied headings and titles).

Formatting Toolbar

The image below shows the main editing features of Docs, the Format text option lets you quickly change text from plain text in to a title or heading. The other settings allow you to manually change the font, size, colour and formatting of text as well as it’s layout on the page.

For all Google Docs support - click the link for access to Google Docs Help