New Google Drive features just keep getting better

With the beginning of a new school year, you may notice a few new additions and enhancements to Google Drive. With these ever-increasing updates, Google Drive and its accompanying app, continue to become a more viable replacement for your standard Microsoft Office applications.

Voice Typing

If you have a smart phone, you have probably used the voice dictation function in some manner. Whether asking Google to “take you home” or Siri to find “closest restaurant”, voice recognition has gotten better over the years. Now within the Google Docs “Tools” menu you can access the “Voice Typing” option and begin dictation right to your document.

Research directly from Docs

The research feature has been available from the web version of Google Drive for some time, and is now available within the Android app. Need to research something while typing in Google Docs? You can now do it directly from your document within the Google Drive Android app without ever leaving.

Templates

Templates have always been a weak point of Google Drive, but a fresh update has introduced a new set of professionally designed and easy to access templates directly within Docs, Sheets, and Slides. To access these templates, you need to be in the actual Docs, Sheets, or Slides app rather than within Drive. This is easily done by clicking on the “Home” icon just to the left of the relevant app’s menu bar. You will be presented with a list of featured templates above your recent documents. Click on more, and you will be presented with a list of great templates.

Recent Changes Link

If you are editing a shared document, take notice of the “last edit was on …” link that appear on the menu bar when first opening the document. This gives you a quick and easy way to access the improved recent changes feature.

Updated Forms

Google Forms continues to improve and become more stable, and with the release of even more features, it has quickly become my default go-to for quick surveys and full blow assessments. The ability to add new design features and images directly to questions gives you even more flexibility and usefulness within this great resource.

Scan Documents

If you are using Drive for Android, you can use your phone’s camera to take a picture of documents and have Google Drive store them instantly as a .pdf document on your Google Drive. I have found this to be incredibly useful for receipts,

Even more Functionality

Can’t find the functionality you need within the vanilla version of Google Drive? The chrome webstore has hundreds of Google Drive specific apps that will enhance and expand the features of your Google Drive. Everything from mind mapping to diagramming to interactive presentations can be found and added to your Drive.

Google continues to add enhancements to their Google Drive product. Know of more? Tell us about them in the comments below.