Collaboration Services News and Updates

Google Updates Recap: March 2024

This month, we’ve got an Updates Recap focused on Google Drive and Docs Editors features, including the long-awaited Speaker Spotlight in Google Slides.

Google Docs

New way to use smart canvas in Google Docs

When entering an email address in a Google Doc, you will begin to see an autocomplete suggestion to autocomplete the email address; then, immediately you will see another suggestion to convert the email address into a People chip.

Feature Availability: This feature is now available.

Google Drive & Docs Editors

Playback improvements to videos uploaded on Google Drive

When playing videos uploaded to Google Drive, you will now notice the following improvements:

• The bitrate / quality (480p, 720p, 1080p, etc.) will adapt based on factors such as network quality.
• Less time between when you hit play and when the video begins to play
• A reduction in re-buffering, both in normal playback as well as during playback at higher speeds 

Feature Availability: These improvements are already present in newly uploaded videos uploaded to Google Drive since March 1, 2024. Videos already uploaded to Google Drive will see these improvements by the end of the year.

Sort, filter and manage comments faster in Google Docs, Sheets and Slides

Navigating and sorting comments in the Docs Editors (Docs, Sheets, and Slides) now has improved sorting and filtering. You can explore new and familiar ways to interact with comments by going to View → Comments and selecting: 

• Show all comments: opens up a full-length view to deep dive into multiple comments more easily in Docs, Sheets or Slides. Now you can use updated search and filter functionality to focus on the most relevant comments. You will also notice a curated ‘For you’ list, which surfaces all the comments you need to take action on. 
• Expand comments (in Google Docs and Slides): shows comments next to the document or presentation content so you can review comments and content together. 
• Minimize comments (in Google Docs and Sheets): reduces comments to icons so you can have a more focused view of your work in Docs and Sheets. This setting provides a quick preview with high level information about who is commenting when you hover over the minimized icons. 
• Hide comments: hides comments from view when you want to focus solely on the content in Docs, Sheets or Slides. 

Feature Availability: This feature is now available.

Google Sheets

Smooth scrolling in Google Sheets now available on desktop

Smooth scrolling, a highly requested feature, is now available for Google Sheets on Desktop. With smooth scrolling, you can scroll to a specific part of a row or column and stop wherever you’d like within the spreadsheet. This update works with all Sheets features, such as frozen rows, hidden columns, charts, buttons, comments, on right-to-left layouts, and when you use scrollbars (instead of a mouse/trackpad). 

Note: This feature is automatically available in all Google Sheets, but you may have to adjust Trackpad / Scroll settings in your operating system to scroll less lines at a time to notice a difference.

Feature Availability: This feature is now available.

Set up dropdown chips more easily in Google Sheets

Google Sheets now provides preset dropdown chips, which allow you to use dropdown chips that can be used for a variety of common use cases, such as Project and Review Status, Yes/No, and Priority.

After inserting a preset dropdown chip, you can use the data validation sidebar to adjust the choices as needed.

To get started, insert a dropdown chip by typing “@” followed by “dropdown”. For more information about smart chips in Google Sheets, visit: Insert smart chips in your Google Sheets – Google Docs Editors Help.

Feature Availability: This feature is now available.

Google Slides

Creating more immersive presentations in Google Slides

Previously announced at Google Cloud Next 2022 and mentioned in a previous blog post, “Speaker Spotlight” in Google Slides is now available! 

Speaker Spotlight allows you to insert a “Speaker spotlight” object into your Google Slides presentation and will display your webcam while presenting in a Google Meet. Users can insert a variety of speaker spotlight shapes directly into their slides and then format them to their liking.

Speaker spotlight also integrates with Slides recordings, so that your recording will include your speaker spotlight embedded in the presentation.

To get started, go to Insert → speaker spotlight or click the Speaker spotlight button in the toolbar. For more information about speaker spotlight, visit: Use speaker spotlight – Google Docs Editors Help.

Feature Availability: This feature is now available.

Categories Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Feature Updates and Changes, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Workspace News