Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes: The unofficial guide to Google Drive, Docs, Sheets & Slides

by Ian Lamont

Overview

Do you have 30 minutes to spare? It's all you'll need to get up to speed with Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides, the free online productivity suite and Microsoft Office alternative. Millions of people use the software every day for personal Google accounts as well as Google Workspace accounts associated with a company, school, or other organization. You can use the Google applications to perform the following tasks:

- Write reports and letters with Google Docs

- Crunch numbers and create online surveys using Google Sheets and Google Forms

- Give presentations with Google Slides

- Collaborate online in real time with classmates and colleagues

- Convert Microsoft Office documents to Google formats, and vice versa

- Perform limited editing of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents

- Revert to earlier versions of files

- Export PDFs

- Make pie charts, bar charts, and simple drawings

- Publish documents online

The third edition of this popular guide covers Google Drive basics as well as the updated desktop interfaces for Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites, and Drawings. The tone of this Google Drive book is friendly and easy to understand, with lots of step-by-step instructions and examples and nearly 50 screenshots. The guide can be used by anyone with a PC, Mac, or Chromebook (note: mobile apps are not covered in this edition).

In addition to serving as a solid introduction to new users, it's a great reference manual for more experienced users as well as for people making the transition from Microsoft Office, not to mention teachers using Google Drive for education and Google Docs in the classroom. It includes a glossary of keyboard shortcuts, as well as sections on document formatting, organizing and syncing files, offline documents, collaboration, and Office Compatibility Mode for Microsoft Office documents.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781641880541
Publisher:	In 30 Minutes Guides
Publication date:	01/27/2021
Edition description:	3rd Revised and Updated ed.
Pages:	106
Sales rank:	247,008
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.22(d)

About the Author

Ian Lamont is an award-winning technology journalist, author, and publisher. His books include Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes and Lean Media: How to focus creativity, streamline production, and create media that audiences love. He is a graduate of Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He writes about Lean Media and related business and technology topics at leanmedia.org.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 - Getting started with Drive

• How Google's apps work
• Google Workspace
• Registration
• Navigating the main screen in Google Drive
• New button
• My Drive
• Shared, Photos, Recent, Starred, and Trash
• Accessing multiple accounts, settings, and help
• Special options for selected files and folders
• Preview mode
• Organizing Google Drive
• How to use search in Google Drive
• How to use folders
• Working with Microsoft Office formats
• Direct editing of Microsoft Office formats
• Converting Microsoft Office formats to Google formats

CHAPTER 2 - Google Docs

• Docs basics
• Navigating Google Docs
• How to create a new document in Docs
• How to rename a document
• How to format a document
• Inserting images, page numbers, and more
• Tracking changes in Docs
• Importing and exporting in Docs
• Exporting Word, PDF, and text formats
• How to import documents from other programs
• Converting PDFs to Docs or Word
• Templates and more
• Translate Document
• Explore

CHAPTER 3 - Google Sheets and Google Forms.

• How to create and rename spreadsheets
• Import and Export options
• Functions and calculations
• Spreadsheet terminology
• Your first formula
• How to create a series of numbers using Auto-fill
• SUM and simple math functions
• Formatting numbers and cells
• Sorting and filtering data
• Temperatures example
• Charts and graphs
• How to make a chart or graph
• Gathering data with Google Forms
• How to create a form

CHAPTER 4 - Google Slides.

• Creating and launching presentations
• How to import and convert PowerPoint files
• How to export a presentation
• How to add slides to a presentation
• Editing features of Google Slides
• How to change a theme
• How to format elements in Slides
• How to add new lines, boxes, and other elements
• How to manipulate slide elements
• Transitions and animations
• How to publish a presentation on the web

CHAPTER 5 - Google Drawings, Google Sites, and third-party apps.

• What can you do with Drawings?
• How to create objects in Drawings
• The new Google Sites
• Creating a new site
• Accessing other apps in Google Drive
• How to download other apps
• Extensions and Add-ons

CHAPTER 6 - Collaboration

• What to expect
• Different modes of collaboration
• How to invite collaborators
• How to enable public editing
• How to share a Google Drive folder
• How to remove collaborators from a file or folder
• Contacting collaborators

CHAPTER 7 - Offline access and file storage

• How to set up offline editing
• Working with offline files and storage in Google Drive
• How to install Google Drive on a PC or Mac
• Version history
• How to revert to an old version of a Google file

Glossary: Keyboard shortcuts for Google Drive

Index

Editorial Reviews

2021-03-03
Lamont offers a speedy run-through of Google’s office suite in this third edition of his software guide.

Google’s online office suite is increasingly popular, providing a free, cloud-based alternative to Microsoft 365. Although it’s best known for its applications for file storage (Drive) and word processing (Docs), there are other applications as well, including Sheets, a spreadsheet maker; Slides, a presentation application; the diagramming software Drawings; Forms, a survey maker; and web page maker Sites. “While Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are not as sophisticated as their Microsoft counterparts,” writes Lamont in his introduction, “they handle basic documents and spreadsheets very well.” Lamont breaks each application down for new and would-be users, demystifying the platform and helping readers discover all the functions they offer. In keeping with its “30 Minutes” premise, the book provides a simple rundown for users to quickly familiarize themselves with each program, explaining its purpose, how to navigate it, and how to get the most out of it, presenting step-by-step instructions and plenty of clarifying screenshots. Lamont also includes “Protips” to fix common mistakes, such as creating files under the wrong account when one has two accounts open in a browser at the same time. This edition includes descriptions of the programs’ newest, updated interfaces and adds Forms and Sites to the mix for the first time. The author’s prose is sparse but encouraging and has the tone of a friendly, patient IT expert, and he beneficially speaks his mind when he thinks a product isn’t quite up to snuff: “While Google Sheets is good, it comes up short in a few key areas, such as formatting and working with large sets of data.” Overall, these programs are fairly straightforward, and Lamont’s explanations of them are likewise uncomplicated, but this book will be helpful for anyone who may be intimidated by the interface. It will also benefit experienced users who feel deficient in some area, such as the collaboration feature.

An accessible, nuts-and-bolts primer on a widely used office suite.

Kirkus Reviews