Google Docs just added what I consider to be a feature that is needed to help bridge the gap between desktop and online word processing. They added a page view (as expected) that is typical of any desktop word processor, and it's almost like getting a live print preview while you work. To access the new setting go to the View menu, and select the fixed-width page view option.

Google actually made an interesting move yesterday in terms of how people can collaborate on the spreadsheets they create. If you take a look at the Share tab in one of your Google Spreadsheets you'll notice a new option towards the bottom that's new. With it you can share a spreadsheet that can be edited by anyone and everyone which, as Google OS points out, essentially makes this a wiki.

Back in September, we wrote about "The Ultimate Steal" from Microsoft because they were offering students the option to purchase Office Ultimate 2007 for just $59 bucks. Considering it retails for $680, this deal is a 91% discount. At the time they said the offer would end on April 30th, but as it turns out, they extended the offer a few days and now its set to end on May 16th, a week from today.

Over the last several months we've seen a lot of growth in the web-based office applications arena. Between Zoho and Google Docs, all kinds of features have been added which make using the applications even easier and more second nature.

While Google's Presentations application has been nice, it has been missing one important feature.  That feature is the option to save presentations in the PowerPoint format (PPT). Today that changes because Google now supports PPT files. This means that users will be able to open the presentations that they create with Google, in Microsoft's PowerPoint.

Last November, Zoho announced that they were adding offline editing support to Zoho Writer using Google Gears. We mentioned how ironic it was that Zoho was using Google's service (Google Gears) to make the offline editing support available, yet Google still wasn't offering any type of offline editing or synchronization option for Google Docs.

A few weeks ago we posted an article about some of the tools Google uses internally. In the presentation that Google gave there was (inadvertently?) a screenshot of a Google Docs that was not available to the public. In it we saw a more complete menu structure located above the recently revamped toolbar. Well, they just added those menus to everyone's Google Docs.

A recent blog post over at the Google Docs Blog explains a new way that Google is taking collaboration even further by giving developers the opportunity to create gadgets for Google Docs.

I couldn't believe my eyes this morning when I read this post over at Google Blogoscoped. It appears that some of the backend for an Easter Egg has been added to Google Docs to make fun of the "thing" Microsoft created back in Office 97 dubbed Clippy. I know, it's a touchy subject for me as well, but the code in Google Docs points to the Google "Cliply" that you see pictured to the right.

Last May when Google first launched Google Gears to bring applications offline, there was a lot of talk about which applications everybody would like to see with offline capabilities. Since that time there haven't been a whole lot of web-apps that have taken the plunge and so the wish-list has pretty much remained the same. Topping our list was Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Gmail.

Google Blogoscoped noticed that there was a presentation given by Google at KMWorld the other day, and while there they gave an inside look at some of the tools they use internally to stay productive.

Google decided that today would be a good day to spruce up Google Docs a bit by removing some of the blue that previously laid behind the buttons on the toolbar. When I first saw the new design (pictured below) I thought it looked pretty slick, but then I almost started to see some resemblance from Zoho's recent makeover:

Shortly after Google acquired YouTube back in 2006, they acquired Jotspot. Jotspot offered their users a place where they could create a structured Wiki that was easily updatable. Once they were acquired, we knew eventually Google would launch that used Jotspot's technology.

There are certain features in Google Docs that everybody seems to know about, yet there are others which are hardly known. One such hardly known feature will be helpful for times when you need to revise a document. It's built right into Google Docs and allows a user to look at two versions of the same document side by side and compare them.

Up until now, the features that have been added to Google Spreadsheets have been a bit underwhelming.

Google Docs has come a long way in becoming a powerful online alternative to the desktop office suites, and now there's a Firefox extension that makes it way better. The Google Docs Companion for Firefox adds a new sidebar in Firefox for quickly managing and searching your online documents. The simple, yet powerful interface is sure to win over your heart.

It's always fun to get a sneak peek at what Google has in store for its users, and Tony Ruscoe managed to get a glimpse at a future Google Docs feature. He said that ""

A couple of weeks ago Google announced several new features for both the Documents and Presentations applications.

It looks as though the teams working on Google's Presentations and Documents applications have been busy over the last several months. Both have new features that make the online applications even better. 

For those of you who use both Microsoft Office and Google Docs, you're going to love a fairly new web app called DocSyncer. DocSyncer makes it possible to synchronize your Microsoft Office documents with your Google Docs account.  It's pretty genius, isn't it? I'm actually surprised Google hasn't thought to try to implement something like this on their own.