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Oct 31

Google Docs Takes More Apps Offline

This article was written on April 28, 2008 by CyberNet.

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. The team over at Google Docs has just gotten done adding yet more features to their suite of online apps, including offline capability for more of their applications.

Back on April 1st, we wrote about how Google had finally added offline capability to Google Docs. We said “finally” because Zoho had already been using Google Gears to take Zoho Writer offline. At the time, we wondered who would be first, Google or Zoho, to add offline support for either spreadsheets or presentations. The answer to that is Google. On Friday they made the announcement that they finished rolling out offline support for Google Docs and now they’ve moved on to Spreadsheets and Presentations. For now, it’s view-only offline access, but it’s a first step and can only mean editing will be soon to follow.

Another feature that they announced on Friday for Presentations is the option to include speaker notes (something you can do in PowerPoint) and YouTube videos. Those speaker notes can be printed so that you’ll be able to use them while giving your presentation, or you can have them appear in a separate window on your computer while you’re presenting, to read from.

If by chance using a YouTube video in your presentation would help you make a point, by all means, insert the video! Now you can insert multiple videos right onto your slides and then the videos can play while you’re making a presentation. Once again, PowerPoint has a similar feature. While you can’t insert YouTube videos, there is the option to insert a movie that you have saved on your computer. Just look for the “Insert Video” link at the top of your Google Docs Presentation page.

As you’ll see from the image above, once you click “Insert Video” a box will pop-up so that you can search YouTube for the video that you’re wanting to insert. Once you find the video, you’ll just click the box next to the video and click “Insert Video.” That’s all there is to it.

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