Google Docs rolls out student-oriented features

Google Docs' summer interns this summer were tasked with working on improvements and additions to the service geared toward students.

The results of their work, now available to try out, include new features such as an equation editor, superscripts and subscripts, document translation, improvements to surveys, and more outlining options.

Google Docs' new equation editor.

(Credit: Screenshot by Harrison Hoffman/CNET)

While none of these features is groundbreaking on its own, collectively, they help round out Google's productivity suite, fulfilling some specific needs that probably prevented some from using the service.

A lot of people complain about the minimal feature set of Google Docs, as compared to market leader Microsoft Office, which got a 16-year head start on Google's offering and is sometimes criticized for being feature-cluttered. Students comprise one of the core groups of users and potential users of Docs, so it makes sense to build out the feature set to support the kinds of word-processing, spreadsheet-tweaking, and presentation-building tasks that they typically need to perform.

[Police_States_of_America]

not surprising, didnt microsoft office online just get opened? i'll be sticking with docs.

[t8]

Google Docs is great.
I was sold on that service 2 years ago.
I wouldn't consider Microsoft unless, Google did something to really annoy me.

[esteven4]

They couldn't manage to include shared folders in that?

[xhable]

*mutters that it's missing the ? symbol*... they obviously aren't that nerdy those Google students.

[xhable]

Okay I guess Cnet doesn't support it either.. .I'm referring to U+2258... easily the most used symbol for me in any equation editor.

[forever4now]

These features will make Google Apps even better, but I think they are already ideal, for an educational environment. They allow students to:

- collaborate on documents.
- maintain version control on their documents.
- have their documents backed up automatically.
- access their documents, from any computer (library, lab, friend, family, etc.).
- use a computer running any OS (Windows, OS X, Ubuntu, etc.).
- access their documents from their smartphone.
- edit their documents while offline, via HTML5/Gears.

Plus, with the recent integration of WebGL into Firefox & WebKit (used by Chrome, Safari & most native smartphone browsers), I assume it will eventually be possible to do 3D data modelling, etc. in Google Apps.

Except for a small percentage of "power" users, I see less of a reason for people (especially students), to use a desktop office suite.

[Hunnter2k3]

If only they would port over Google Notebook.
Its not like they will need to change much of it, change some domains, copy over the API from Notebook to Docs, maybe change some stuff to deal with how files get saved, bham, Notebook is alive and kicking again!
I miss Notebook... i used it throughout all of college.

The citations & bibliography feature in Microsoft Office 2007 is the most useful feature for me (a student). I don't think it's in Docs.

[CyR00k]

As a grad student the one feature that keeps me using MS Office over Google Docs for my term papers and dissertation is the source citation database that MS has. It is so insanely helpful to have that when writing several 30+ page papers every semester with dozens of sources. I do use Google Docs for all of my short papers and all of my note-taking it is simply too convenient not to use.

[Lingo24]

Some of these features will be a welcome addition, though I'm a little sceptical about the document translation feature. Machine translation has a tendency to just about get the correct message across, but often failing on the finer details. If students are to use this for any important research work, it could lead them astray. But if it's for non-critical text, then I look forward to seeing the reaction after its release!

Regards,
Lingo24
http://www.lingo24.com

[huddie klein]

How am I supposed to take Cnet seriously if they link to there own article about Google Docs' 'minimal feature set' from *2006* !? Thats'completely irrelevant now!!!

http://reviews.cnet.com/online-software-services/google-docs-spreadsheets/4505-9239_7-32115919.html