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Tool: Google Docs
Written by Mary on November 26, 2007 – 5:22 pm -
Website: http://docs.google.com/
What it is: It’s a word processor, a program to create and share documents online. It’s like Microsoft Word except it’s free and it’s collaborative.
Rating: 
Applications for activists: A great way to create a campaign document - like a press release or manifesto - collaboratively. You create the document and then you invite the other organizers of your campaign to edit it (explained in “Steps for Use”). This is also a good tool to use if you do not want to leave the document on your computer’s hard drive.
Cost: Free
Available Languages: all languages Google is available in (we think)
You can figure it out in: 4 minutes
Why we like it: Works just like Microsoft Word so it’s east to figure out, only it’s free. You can add other activists as collaborators and then they can view and edit the document too. You can access your documents from any Internet-connected computer, so this is a great option for people who don’t own a computer and use public computers in cyber cafes.
Some problems: The file organization system isn’t particularly good. You can’t add images to the text. Sometimes when you copy and paste the document into Word there are formatting errors.
Steps for Use:
1. Create a Gmail account here. (You will need a Google Gmail account to create a Google Docs account. If you already have a Gmail account, then just sign into your Gmail account and click the “Documents” link in the top lefthand corner of the page. That will open your Google Docs homepage)
2. Once you arrive at your Google Docs homepage, click on the link on the left of the darker blue toolbar that says “New” and choose “document” (see red arrow). (You can also create a spreadsheet or slide presentation, but you’ll need to figure that out on your own.)
3. You now have a new document. To give the document a title click the word “Untitled” and then type in your own title.
4. You can change the text color and style, add bullets, highlighting, justification, etc. using the icons on the pale blue toolbar. If you move your mouse over an icon, a text window will pop which says what that icon does
5. The document saves automatically every minute or so (this is another good thing about Google Docs). However, just to be sure that your changes have been saved when you close the document, click the “Save and Close” button (purple arrow) on the right side of the screen. If you want to save without closing, press the “Save” (green arrow) button.
6. To share your document with collaborators, click the “Share” tab on the right side of the page (red arrow).
7. Enter the e-mail addresses of the people you’d like to collaborate with. If you add them as Collaborators, they can view and edit the document. If you add them as Viewers, they can see the document but cannot edit it.
8. After you click “Invite Collaborators,” a message box will pop-up that allows you to send a message to the collaborators telling them that they can edit the document. Explain briefly what they document is and then click “Send.”
9. Now you will be sent back to your document.
10. If you are ready to stop working on your document, click “Save and Close.” After you close the document, you can get back to it by going to your Google Docs homepage, where you will see its title listed . Click on the title to open the document.
(image credit: Kavinda Munasinghe’s Blog)
Is anything about these instructions unclear? Did we make a mistake? Let us know in the comments section and we will make the appropriate change.
Tags: documents, googledocs, tool
Posted in Tools |