Google Docs : new editing and confidentiality options

Google has announced changes are to be made to the confidentiality and sharing options contained in their online office tools. Google Docs will also benefit from now editing functions.

Microsoft has just launched the public version of Office 2010 which also sees the Office Web Apps system inaugurated. These light online versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint are complimented by the Windows Live SkyDrive service. If you don’t own Office 2010, these Office Web Apps are accessible to all holders of a Windows Live ID account (global roll out is underway).

The fact that Microsoft has made their office applications available online has undoubtedly led to Google increasing the visibility of their Google Docs suite. Google’s online office tools are made up of a word processor, spreadsheet program, a presentation module and more recently, a picture editor.


Continued improvement
A few hours before the official launch of Office 2010, Google announced that their new documents editor and spreadsheets program had been made available. These elements had been available for testing since April, offering real time collaborative work for up to 50 people working on the same document, the monitoring of changes made by each participant character by character, and online discussions about the different changes made.

In terms of user interface, the text editor now makes it possible to change the margins and add tables. An index table is also now available and it is possible to resize pictures. The spreadsheet program has a new formula bar, with it being possible to drag and drop between columns, while auto-completion is also present. The spreadsheet pages load faster, and scrolling is quicker.

While the new graphical spreadsheet program has been made available to everyone, the new document editor is only being progressively deployed. For Google Apps clients, these new programs will become default from the 21st of June for the document editor, and the 30th of June for the spreadsheet program.


Confidentiality: Making it simple
In a context where confidentiality options are continually being looked at, Google has announced a new method of sharing documents. A new interface is planned which is currently being deployed, with this to be made available to all users from next week.

The documents, spreadsheets and presentations are configured in the same way as before, with their settings being private by default. A link will appear next to each publication, making access to the new sharing interface possible, with the new options being private, shared with anyone via a link or public on the web. This is just a simplification of what was already possible (see video below), but when talking about confidentiality, users were looking for better clarification.