Small Internet Business

Revisiting Editing Documents Without Internet Access Using Google Docs

Google added a feature that I really, really wanted to their already awesome Google Docs office suite. I’d written about how we’ve used Google Docs to work together more efficiently. One of the features I loved was how, after installing the Google Gears extension, you could edit documents without having an internet connection. That’s great for people like us who travel a lot, but still want to get work done, and aren’t always online.

One of the things I hated was not having any control over which documents got synced to your laptop or USB drive to allow you to edit them offline. The application chose what to sync and what not to sync. There have been plenty of times when we didn’t have internet access while traveling, I’d find out something wasn’t downloaded, and I couldn’t work on an active project.

Well, they’ve fixed that little problem so I’m a happy dude. Now there’s a menu:

More options -> Sync now (for offline access)

which lets you sync up any document, spreadsheet, or presentation that you select. I could potentially sync every single document in my account while I was online. That isn’t likely something I’ll do. I might sync everything in a particular folder though. Either way, having the option is nice.

What features do you want to see Google add next?

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Happy to see continuous improvement in Google Docs.