Google Docs Rocks! Google Documents for Librarians Computerside Chat Southwest Iowa Library Service Area February 11, 2008
Today’s session What, Why and How of Google Docs Demo Practice (if time!)
What is Google Documents? Online workspace Word processing, presentations, spreadsheets Invite collaborators to share: Viewing documents Editing documents
Google Docs in the Library? Advantages Work on docs from any computer with Internet connection Collaboration—multiple editors, simultaneously Changes/edits are seen by everyone immediately Automatically saves Can “revert” to previous versions Disadvantages Some limitations on export formats
What might it be used for? Newsletter—share the authorship! Co-authored blog posts County budget presentation; each library contribute Develop/revise procedure manual Develop agendas for meetings Collaborative projects—organize, manage Committee work Keep your own documents “handy” for access from any Internet computer
How does Google Docs work?
Google Docs Bare Bones Get Documents In Edit Documents (shared editing, if desired) “Get Documents Out” to use (publish, save, distribute…)
First things first…
Docs Home
Get Documents In New (create in Google Docs) Upload (from your computer) in (as attachments)
New document
Editing a document Edit by yourself Invite collaborators View only -OR- Edit
Share a document
Edit a document
Previous Revisions…
Spreadsheets
Discussing a spreadsheet
Presentations
Getting Documents Out Print Export (save to computer, etc.) Publish
Formats (export/save to computer) Documents: html, rtf, Word, Open Office, pdf, text Spreadsheets csv, ods, html, pdf, xls, txt Presentations pdf
Organization in Google Docs
Other features documents to your Google Docs (Upload—scroll down to see unique address for your Google Docs) Post docs to a blog (RSS feeds of your public Google Docs)
Some Numbers… 10 people can edit a document or presentation at one time, 50 can edit a spreadsheet at one time Limits: 1000 documents per account 1000 images per account Docs: up to 500 KB each Presentations: 10 MB from computer 2 MB from the web 500 KB via Spreadsheets: up to 1 MB
More resources This chat’s support page: Karen Burns quiltlibrarian on Yahoo, MSN, AIM