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March 12, 2008 11:36 AM PDT

gDocsBar now turns Google Docs into a Web archiving tool

by Josh Lowensohn

Remember gDocsBar (download), that handy Firefox extension we checked out a few months back? It got a pretty neat update today that lets you do things that might not have been originally intended for Google's Documents and Spreadsheets service. The first is called Webclips, which is a fancy way of saying automatic copy and paste. If you find a big chunk of content you like, you can simple copy it, then drag it into the toolbar. gDocsBar will create a new document out of whatever you've highlighted, and preserve, as much as possible, the formatting and links.

The other new feature that power users are going to enjoy is templates. You can take any document you've made, or create a new one, and set it up to be a template in Google Docs. This will likely come in handy to spreadsheet junkies who repeatedly use a particular form or document with formulas built in. Using templates would save you some of the hassle of copying and pasting over the data from an existing spreadsheet and doing it again.

In addition to these two updates, creator Sandosh Vasudevan has fixed some of the problems that plagued it when we first took a look. For instance, you can now create new documents right from the toolbar, as well as see and search through all of your docs without having to visit the Docs and Spreadsheets home.

You can read more about the update on the gDocsBar blog. If you've got an earlier version of the extension installed, click on Tools > Add-ons then click the "check for updates" button.

Make and re-use templates in Google Documents and Spreadsheets with the gDocsToolbar.

(Credit: gDocsBar.com)
Josh Lowensohn is an associate editor for Webware.com, CNET's blog about cool and otherwise useful Web applications and services. If you've found a site you'd like profiled, shoot him an e-mail. E-mail Josh.
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