I'm old-fashioned - I like a Word Processor installed locally, files stored locally and backed up three ways...and the ability to access files with or without the internet being connected....BUT whatever works for you (and it clearly does) is fine :-) Cheers Chris!
I agree 100%... I actually do most of my "word processing" in vim with markdown and then feed it through pandoc to get it the output in the right format (like PDF, for example). I am also learning LaTeX because I end up "fighting" with any word processor anyway (MS Word, LibreOffice, etc.) My brain is more used now to just chucking what I need to write into a file and then going back and worrying about the formatting afterwards - which a traditional word processor inhibits, in my view. Plus if you have it all in a flat text file, it's then easy to run a script over it with sed, awk, etc. (or a vim macro) to change it globally and quickly.
Thanks for your support. :) When I started out using Google Docs it was because I was writing a book on cloud computing, so it was kind of an experiment. But the experiment never ended, with the any-device, anywhere, always-backed-up aspect trumping local word processing (although there are always local copies of every edit).
@@terrydaktyllus1320I also use vim. LaTeX is the best way to do it, it is a good plan to learn that. I read an article from a guy who figured out how to make all his notes for his mathematics education in vim, with graphs added which he made in inkscape and this all in realtime with a minimum of postprocessing. Try that with any office-software. It is above my current skilllevel too but he figured it out within 1 year while studying at a university so it definitely is feasible for many of us to learn it.
Me too ,I don't have problem with online back up .But for all important documents .I always have like 4 copies (pc, external storage, phone and sometimes google drive)
I've written entire books, in real time, with two writing partners in GD. No other process I know of streamlines multiple authors/editors, without a confusion of duplicate files and redundant/lost work. With a minimum coordination, multiple authors can blaze through a project in Google Docs, and for that reason alone it's a keeper for me.
I find your intro music and transitions to be particularly satisfying. It's likely because I know it will lead to very informative and helpful content.
One of the primary reasons I like this channel is that is it upfront about adverts. Using adverts or getting free products does not bother me on any YT channel as long as they are upfront about the context of the products being highlighted in the video. I will refrain from ranting about other YT channels that chose not disclose, it is simply something that leads causal viewers into thinking they are watching an unbiased review, when they are really watching a sponsored product demo that has required talking point and a signed contract in exchange for free products and other benefits. 👍
I'd like to remind people that the first line of defense in privacy is choosing what you put online and on your computer. If you follow that, there's no reason you can't use Google docs, Gmail, or chrome because they are good products outside of privacy concerns. Good video!
I find that reasoning a bit naive because of how much data accumulates over time, all the individual pieces of information which you put online might seem innocent but cummulatively it allows the company to build up a pretty informative profile of a person. I don't care about people choosing to do that, that is up to the individual and I won't judge. Just never expect/demand from other people that they collaborate with you using this software, because then you choose for other people something which ought to be an individual choice.
There's not only Google Docs, I use Google Slides, not only to make presentations but to make schematics. Importing jpg och png pictures, putting Polylines between them in different colors (red +, black -). Then I can explain very easily how things work! Not only computers but electrical wirings, microphone systems with amplifiers and so on! So much fun you can do with Google Slides!
I won't say anything negative about how it works but I don't feel comfortable using it for two reasons: I don't like sensitive information (not as sensitive as passwords but still somewhat sensitive, especially if a lot of information accumulates over time) in the cloud and I definitely don't trust Google or other big tech in regard to this. So I use LibreOffice and Writer, potneitally other locally running office software which runs on Linux. Having said that, I do have one huge issue with LibreOffice: write text with whitelines in between and then select some of the text, like one header, now change the style and you will notice that LibreOffice Write changes all the text as under and right from the point where the cursor is, not only the text which you selected. This makes it extremely cumbersome to work on the styling of the test after you already type the text, you have to do it immediately. Apparently this is not a bug but considered a feature by the developers, I think that most users dislike it.
On principle I don't put anything in the cloud that haven't been produced locally and is heavily encrypted before putting it there. Not that I would put anything sensitive there but why make it easier for Google et al.
Chris, I so look forward to your weekly videos. In addition to always being informative, you, your style, and your chosen subject matter never fail to bring just a few minutes of sanity and calm to this otherwise insane world. Thank you so much.
I've been using Google docs since early 2008. I've written 11 books with all of the drafts in Google Docs. The running version history feature has really saved my sanity when I've accidentally overwritten important changes. So with countless draft files for books and scores of other documents, I have well over 1.5 million words written in Google docs. A million of those have been published.
Libre Office does everything I need.... I have found that Libre Office will even read old MS Works documents ( from the late 1980's ), something that MS Office 360 seems unable to do...
YES. Many times in the middle of the night I access Google Assistant, just say "take a note," and in the morning my midnight rambling is all there --- and I never even had to open my eyes.
Just wait till they announce they're shutting it down and replacing it with Google Notebook. You'll do a complete 180 just because they want to rebrand and monetize it.
@@VitorMadeira Not so far, but they have a history of doing so. Google Plus, Hangouts, Play Music, and many other services they provided they unceremoniously shut down leaving users angry and frustrated. They replaced Google Play Music with CZcams Music and added advertisements (and a worse app in general). They replaced Google Hangouts, the ultimate chat app that had SMS/MMS, IM, voice calls, and video calls with Chat (only IM). With Plus they didn't even bother replacing it. Those are just 3 of literally hundreds of products Google started and later shut down. I mean Google Docs files used to not take up Drive space, either. My "favorite" part about these apps/services being shut down is that they never do it for a good reason. Google Keep might stay available for free, but I wouldn't be surprised if they "sunset" it. On the plus side, they usually give you several months notice.
@@VitorMadeira They have a history of shutting down their products/services for little or no reason. Look up what happened to Play Music, Hangouts, Plus, or just search for the Google Graveyard.
I am so happy to see big tech companies listening to its users. A good customer service is always appreciated by all even though many explicitly don't express it. I am sure Google Docs will continue to be your faithful companion for years to come. Nice video!
The only positive of Google Docs for me is basically it's advanced spell-checking features on non-English languages are super accurate to my needs. Very useful on my everyday work environments, especially if you touch type and save time on correcting things
I appreciate why many people would like the simple UI, the many useful features and the cloud storage aspect. We can all see how people in media type jobs with no interest in tech aspects of PC use would love the easiness of the Google Docs system: they can get their copy, designs, images, task lists, etc all done with a simple and intuitive tool - then resume their coffee and gossiping. Yet all the work done to achieve this level of utility - as well as the ongoing overhead to maintain it all - can only come at a price. Chris, you know damn well what this price is. It is having Google's data crunchers scanning, analysing, collating and summarizing your personal and business data. In Google's case the essence of this data may not simply be sold to advertisers or their clients: today it can be used to conceptualize and refine AI models of human behavior. All without our permission. No siree 😤
Chris, I'm glad you did a video on this. I was a big fan of MS Office for decades. I've been using Google Docs for about 10 years. I love Google's implementation. It looks like much of it was based on MS Office so adapting was easy. Collaboration on Google is outstanding. I also love the time control to review and restore documents revisions.
Wow! I'm not quite sure yet, but you may have just converted this ol' fuddy-duddy of a user from Libre Office! :) My previous hesitation was a security related issue . It still doesn't handle the one thing that I worry about, when I lose Internet access, but @ least chances of that are significantly reduced these days. Thanks again, Sir, for opening my eyes yet again!
I'm a person who doesn't trust Google very much, but I have to say that their text and sheet editor are pretty solid. It's concise, intuitive, and practical.
as always, quality content, amazing host, truely awesome knowledge sharing, and even 14 years later this brief guide on Cloud Computing is still a ressourcefull masterpiece with such an ease of access that even a French guy like me had nothing but pleasur reading it ! Thanks again for sharing your knowledge with us since so long, sharing is caring as they say !
I agree with you 100%. There is another feature I like and that is the Read-aloud sidebar, it is really good for making a talk sound just right, with all the correct punctuations in all the right places. It really helps you out when you are flagging at the end of a busy day.
As an academic I use google suite frequently for collaboration, as it is easy to get everyone into editing (university pays google so everyone has an account). However for a more controllable formatting, after the text is done we import to Microsoft Office or LaTeX. And at home, for all my writings I am using pure text files with markdown.
I never use the google doc format because on your google drive you will see the actual file is not hosted on your system. if you use a docx you can still edit it in google docs AND the actual file is in your possession. which obviously matters in cases where you get your youtube account randomly banned like the terraria dev and so many people. Since just saying something wrong on a youtube comment can make them ban your account, which bans the entire google account, which then means no access to any files you dont have yourself. thats liability.
Oh, on the subject of MS word, we use it at work for assembly documentation, and in my experience it's beyond terrible. It likes to be too clever and move things around or completely loose data off page. It's as if you have to constantly fight to get the layout to behave how you want.
in this particular case you are not exactly the price, they want you to buy the 2 tb subscription really google dpes get money from you but is mostly from youtube and other services, the mail part with this addon os not a money maker untill you pay for those 2 tbs of storage
@@Plons0Nard in this case the data about me comes from youtube, but from a excell file i use 7 years ago in a shared folder from my old job you are thinking in paranoid mode in general, being specific the money comes from ads and services sold, from this in particular, in tye free version, not much is done
I've use Google Docs for ~a decade in consulting my business--it's great. Thanks for pointing out the OCR functionality, as well as Ctrl + Space to remove formatting. 👍
I reviewed the privacy policies just now for Google Docs and was pleasantly surprised that they are quite good. I assume that Google has a strong motivation to leave those privacy policies in place or suffer a severe backlash. Very good video. Thanks.
Exactly so. All the myths being propagated here about privacy simply are not true. And you are right, Google would not have a commercial cloud computing business if it violated user privacy.
Google docs is excellent for CZcams channels that focus on ECE. Especially when sharing schematics or other data rich documents. Informative video as always, thanks. A huge percentage of my Computer knowledge today can be directly traced back to the first of your videos I ever saw. Thank you for all you do to enlighten and elevate the masses. -Jason Burchell( I took my name off my channel as I’m finally going to attempt to upload ECE , RF, SDR content and launch The Electronic Dilettante…blah, blah, blah) Thanks again!!
Onlyoffice offers a plugin for next/owncloud. Chris, I really hope you cover that in another video. If you haven't already. It's a nice usecase for a pi :)
Lots of good information! I forget sometimes to just use f11 to go full screen, and instead would just install as a web app Google Sheets or Docs. Can't recall if you mentioned it in the sharing option, but I like to share a folder in Google Drive with full permissions to folks, so that we all can edit right away any doc inside the folder. I also will star the folder, so it's easy to navigate to whether on laptop or mobile. Oh! I also didn't know about the CTRL+Space keyboard shortcut. Going to remember that one.
Thanks for the image tip Chris, didn't know that. I think the same can be applied to Windows updates, lots of functionality I don't need and specifically absolutely don't want. No matter what feedback is given they plough on.
well, it is free for you in terms of how much money you paud to access the tool, but you are rigth, google gets money from you in other ways, i personaly think they get more from you on youtube than there
@@meatbleed I like how you said ignore the ads instead of blocking them. Who surfs without at least an adblocker nowadays? I don't get it, especially with people who are computer-savvy.
People not using Google Docs concerned about security... and then they send .docx files over gmail 😂 Nice video Chris, I love google docs and also MS (offline) word and excel... both have advantages and disadvantages. It always depends on every user workflow. (I use both)
It's not difficult to encrypt files sent through email, even Gmail, and sending the occasional file in the clear is a very different thing than handing Google on a silver plate every single bit of data that is important to you. So yeah, you're WAY off base with that comment.
At the company I work for, we use Google Docs for stuff that might need to be viewed/edited by multiple people. You can control who, individually, can edit and/or view the document, so we can allow not only our colleagues to edit (or not) a document, we can allow clients to do so as well. It’s very convenient.
"Sod the users!" I think that's the first time I've heard you say something like that 😀(look, I'm being a 12-year-old). I bet a lot of people wouldn't be so restrained. I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment BTW.
Thanks so much for making this video. After years of using Google Docs I learned some new things. It would be great to see you make more videos like this on how you use Google and other products. It is not too late for any of use to learn new things. Cheers!! :)
lem with Google is that they often go their own way which forces you to stay in their ecosystem. We have this in our company and we have often to export the documents for our customers - and nearly every time we have to redo the design and style so that the exported document does look acceptable. It has their advantages especially if multiple users have to work in the same document but you have to calculate the extra effort and incompatibilities.
It's more about Microsoft using their own proprietary and incredibly complex document rendering algorithm, which is understandable because Word has been around since the dark ages. Mac Pages and other third parties have pretty much the same issues with export features.
@@generessler6282With OpenOffice or LibreOffice I have not the same issues like with Google Docs. I could also replicate similar issues from OpenOffice or LibreOffice importing Google Doc exports - but this is tested just in fewer cases.
Thanks for demonstrating Google Docs. I should consider cloud word processors. I have a 2 TB Google Drive, but I've been using MS Office since my employer upgraded our Windows 3.1 systems to Windows 95 some time in the previous century. Now that I'm running Mint as the only OS on my computers, I stick to Libre Office and like you, I have Office in a Virtual Box image though I haven't opened it in 2024. Old habits die hard. Although it is out of scope and should you need filler content, it would be nifty if you made a companion video for Google Sheets. When I worked, Excel was always open and running, though I was starting to rely Python and Pandas for data cleansing and analysis before taking sick leave. Now that I'm not working, I use Sheets for structured data storage for Python coding projects. As a Canadian, I do get annoyed that the YYYY-MM-DD standard gets changed to US or UK style automatically. (Edit: It seems that Google listened and I can use ISO 8601 date formats, but I am not sure if they can be set as default like in Excel.)
Why I use MS Word instead? Pen support. I annotate documents a lot in Windows, Android and iPads with a stylus and only Word has proper support. It seems that markup support is coming to Google docs, so we'll see how good and flexible it is, but so far this is a dealbreadker for both google docs and Libre office for me.
Good point. But how hard (or long) will it be before GoogleDocs adopt such a feature ? I'm a Libre man myself. But after seeing this, I think Libre has to start bringing in voice-to-text, text-from-scan, sharing across devices and yes even your pen annotation features on the double.
@@benzflynn As I said Google has annouced a markup features (although from what they showed it looks more of an afterthought that a full feature like in Word). As for Libreoffice people have been requesting this for years and they don't listen (and I can understand, it's free and it's not something easy to implement I guess, so I doubt it's ever coming). Google docs is technically free but it's a way for google to sell their storage services and the products in general (so also their ads), not so for Libreoffice, so much less incentive.
Wow Christopher, you really hit a divisive topic in this video! I can see how using google docs works well for you and I have always been tempted to use it myself too. But then I start wishing they supported zero knowledge encryption. And I know you've spoken to Google and they have said they don't scan docs, but then that makes me wonder if that is the case, then why don't they implement zero knowledge encryption on google drive? Your video is perfectly timed for me as I've recently lost my remote backup location and I am currently working out what the new one will be. Congratulations on your thought-provoking video and your million subs!!
Google Drive is a blessing for me. It took me a while to adapt, since I was so used to Microsoft Office, but you later realize that Google's suite of products is more than enough for most average consumers, students and small businesses. As for the data privacy issues a lot of people are concerned about, after more than a decade of using Google for one thing or another, I've yet to see any negative effects of them having access to my personal information. Knock knock
Google Docs fan too. My Synology NAS downloads my Google Docs as docx every night so I have an automatic local backup. I then send those files automatically to another online service for backup.
The only downside for me is Google Drive version control - it’s not possible to do a true ‘revert’ to an older version, like in Windows “File History” which restores the exact timestamp for the previous version.
I still have an ancient Dell Optiplex 280 running XP with Office 2003, offline obviously. I have an old HP color laser connected to it and i use it for almost all Office needs. I will either print what i need or create it and save it to a flash drive and move it to my laptop to email it or back it up etc. Truly wish they would bring back the Office 200/2003 style office.
Office 2003 was and still is brilliant. Office 2007 is also excellent, and has the ribbon interface which takes a bit of getting used to but is effective. Hang on to these personal software packages - they are excellent and powerful, it's all marketing BS to say they are out of date.
About the only thing I can't stand with Office 2003, especially with Excel, is that I can't seem to be able to search for words and names WITHIN the document. I despise that so much!
Christopher, this lack of menus is why I still use MS office 97 (which still works in windows 10 and 11). And google chrome STILL after over 15 years, lacks the menu bar :( Edit: oops, I used an emoticon, err smiley... errr emoji i think it's called now, but I am 40 years beyond 12
Greetings. Thorough review. And most of us must agree that Google docs is a great free alternative than to paying for Office 365, especially for non-power users.
While watching it occurred to me you may want to explore so-called "second brain" software, such as obsidian. With a wealth of collected documents over so many years, there's probably an opportunity hiding there, maybe a video, too.
Microsoft Word is a lot less fiddle-y. One thing I hate about Google Docs is moving images around, it causes it to scroll really fast when you move the image even slightly towards the bottom or top of the screen, instead of gradually increasing in speed. Sometimes images just disappear too if they’re pushed off the edge of a page, or you accidentally put them in the header and its copied to all headers across the document. Though, Google Docs is completely free, and can run on any computer or device that has a good browser. My favourite word processor is Microsoft Word 2010 or 2007, though they arn’t supported anymore. If you want to use them, make sure you don’t select them as the default to open any files.
I had always been a bit curious why you liked Google Docs so much and appreciate this informative video. I’ve been planning to check it out and now have a better idea what to expect. Looking forward to your next video!
Appreciate the insight and the opportunity to learn about the Google tool. Given I have been using Microsoft Word and Excel since they where released into the market I find it hard to force myself into trying something new. BUT, you have stimulated my interest and given I really do not have anything more creative to occupy my time, I may give it a go. I enjoy 99% of your content and always look forward to it. Thank you and best regards.
I use Google Docs (and Sheets) for most anything that's not too sensitive and for which I want to be able to easily access on any modern OS I use (MacOS, Windows 10, Linux, IOS/iPad OS, & Android). For more sensitive stuff, stuff that requires features not yet present in G.D., or for strictly offline use, I use LibreOffice (with Mac, Windows, and Linux). The one exception is for Keynote style presentations for which I have used Apple Keynote or LibreOffice ( I haven't tried Google Slides yet). It's nice with Docs and Numbers to have every G.D. document always readily available any computer device/OS so long as you have access to a modern web browser or have the IOS or Android app installed.
@@ExplainingComputers I don't think anyone can definitively say whether it does or it doesn't. I prefer the safe route of not using "the cloud" at all, least when it's provided by such a notorious harvester. Local is best. 🙂
Maybe Microsoft wants to keep its office web/desktop versions consistent. Anyway, I really do prefer using menus over ribbons. Also, I think the working offline feature can be helpful. Thanks Chris!
Even though Google's privacy for its users is questionable at best, I like there services( maps, docs, spreadsheets, etc. ) There Phones are also pretty good
I was using a Chrome Book to run the scanner part of a Brother printer/scanner. Too much toner costs and I moved onto a laser. But the scanner works fine. I had a Brother app that worked with ChromeBooks over WIFI. Then it didn't. So, I hooked the Chromebook up via USB. Chromebook starts popping up toner out messages. 5 colors/5 messages. A couple of days later I get 5 NOTIFICATIONS FROM AMAZON about buying Brother toner cartridges. I don't remember signing up for that. That was a couple of weeks ago.
@@ExplainingComputersOf course they do! How could they offer Google Docs as a free service unless they gain something from it? It's more personal data that they can gather about you and sell on for advertising services.
Wow. It does more things then i thoght it did. Thanks for showing us all. What we could use every day. That is way better then most Office Software around. 😊
If I remember correctly, I was using Google Doc to create 365 pages of daily calendar. It got massively bogged down at the end, being a few seconds delay per character typed! I managed to complete the document uaing judicious use of search and replace, but ended up just abandoning the project. 😢
Rarely disagree with you but here I do. Try using it without an Ethernet cable or a WiFi receiver. It's not your data when it's tucked away on some far flung servers and archive centres totally out of your control. Try using it when one day Google et al don't approve of the browser you're using or the location you're in... Functionally and aesthetically it's not even close to Microsoft Office 2007 & 2010. If you believe it is 'free' it is not - it's analysed and fed into data markets and AI systems. This obsession with online applications is strange - all our sovereignty stripped away. Seems like we've gone full circle and the idea of a PC actually being a personal computer is fading fast - it's now just a terminal. Sad.
So when are you releasing "Why I Love Google Docs (extended edition)" where you explain the long story behind why you spend most of your time in your free account? ;-)
I don't trust Google. If I can avoid their software, I do. I'd like a) an android free phone b) my favourite content creators to at least consider using one of the new tech video services (even just a mirror)
Yes i use GD with Grammarly for non-sensitive files and docs etc, great for cross device access. Also have Scrivner (notepad on steriods) for proper writing.
“I’m sure if you’re 12, that would be great.” Priceless!
🤓
😂🤣😒😭
Was so exciting seeing an actual script and those immortal words “Let’s go and take a closer look” there before our eyes.
Bahahaha - me and my friend actualy say "Have you seen 'Let's go and take a closer look' this week?" to each other 😆
@@DanElgaard9 And Stanley the knife and Mr Scissors
@@TheChipmunk2008 The real stars of the show 🙂
I'm old-fashioned - I like a Word Processor installed locally, files stored locally and backed up three ways...and the ability to access files with or without the internet being connected....BUT whatever works for you (and it clearly does) is fine :-) Cheers Chris!
I agree 100%... I actually do most of my "word processing" in vim with markdown and then feed it through pandoc to get it the output in the right format (like PDF, for example).
I am also learning LaTeX because I end up "fighting" with any word processor anyway (MS Word, LibreOffice, etc.) My brain is more used now to just chucking what I need to write into a file and then going back and worrying about the formatting afterwards - which a traditional word processor inhibits, in my view.
Plus if you have it all in a flat text file, it's then easy to run a script over it with sed, awk, etc. (or a vim macro) to change it globally and quickly.
Thanks for your support. :) When I started out using Google Docs it was because I was writing a book on cloud computing, so it was kind of an experiment. But the experiment never ended, with the any-device, anywhere, always-backed-up aspect trumping local word processing (although there are always local copies of every edit).
@@terrydaktyllus1320I also use vim. LaTeX is the best way to do it, it is a good plan to learn that. I read an article from a guy who figured out how to make all his notes for his mathematics education in vim, with graphs added which he made in inkscape and this all in realtime with a minimum of postprocessing. Try that with any office-software. It is above my current skilllevel too but he figured it out within 1 year while studying at a university so it definitely is feasible for many of us to learn it.
@@ExplainingComputersmine was sticky notes
Me too ,I don't have problem with online back up .But for all important documents .I always have like 4 copies (pc, external storage, phone and sometimes google drive)
As a chromebook devotee (since 2014) I share your joy not only with google docs but also sheets. Another great video. Thanks!
Me too and today I tried Google AppSheet with a sheet as a database. Good fun to play around with 😅
I've written entire books, in real time, with two writing partners in GD. No other process I know of streamlines multiple authors/editors, without a confusion of duplicate files and redundant/lost work. With a minimum coordination, multiple authors can blaze through a project in Google Docs, and for that reason alone it's a keeper for me.
I find your intro music and transitions to be particularly satisfying. It's likely because I know it will lead to very informative and helpful content.
Voice to Text and OCR ... Candidly, I didn't know it was that easy. Thank you!
One of the primary reasons I like this channel is that is it upfront about adverts. Using adverts or getting free products does not bother me on any YT channel as long as they are upfront about the context of the products being highlighted in the video. I will refrain from ranting about other YT channels that chose not disclose, it is simply something that leads causal viewers into thinking they are watching an unbiased review, when they are really watching a sponsored product demo that has required talking point and a signed contract in exchange for free products and other benefits. 👍
Thanks, and appreciated. :)
I'd like to remind people that the first line of defense in privacy is choosing what you put online and on your computer. If you follow that, there's no reason you can't use Google docs, Gmail, or chrome because they are good products outside of privacy concerns. Good video!
I find that reasoning a bit naive because of how much data accumulates over time, all the individual pieces of information which you put online might seem innocent but cummulatively it allows the company to build up a pretty informative profile of a person. I don't care about people choosing to do that, that is up to the individual and I won't judge. Just never expect/demand from other people that they collaborate with you using this software, because then you choose for other people something which ought to be an individual choice.
There's not only Google Docs, I use Google Slides, not only to make presentations but to make schematics. Importing jpg och png pictures, putting Polylines between them in different colors (red +, black -). Then I can explain very easily how things work! Not only computers but electrical wirings, microphone systems with amplifiers and so on! So much fun you can do with Google Slides!
I won't say anything negative about how it works but I don't feel comfortable using it for two reasons: I don't like sensitive information (not as sensitive as passwords but still somewhat sensitive, especially if a lot of information accumulates over time) in the cloud and I definitely don't trust Google or other big tech in regard to this. So I use LibreOffice and Writer, potneitally other locally running office software which runs on Linux. Having said that, I do have one huge issue with LibreOffice: write text with whitelines in between and then select some of the text, like one header, now change the style and you will notice that LibreOffice Write changes all the text as under and right from the point where the cursor is, not only the text which you selected. This makes it extremely cumbersome to work on the styling of the test after you already type the text, you have to do it immediately. Apparently this is not a bug but considered a feature by the developers, I think that most users dislike it.
On principle I don't put anything in the cloud that haven't been produced locally and is heavily encrypted before putting it there. Not that I would put anything sensitive there but why make it easier for Google et al.
you paranoid bro. you tweakin
@@chillydoogYou probably need to spend more time reading English grammar books and less time on the Internet.
I agree. I simply will not use it because of the privacy issues - that makes it completely unusable to me, no matter what features it has.
My default is boycott google. If google weren't a criminal company that bends knee to hostile dictatorships, I'd have a different outlook.
I'm an MS Word guy mainly because of academic writing. Auto table of contents, bibliography and citation are realy, realy neat there.
Try using Titles and subtitles on Google Docs.
It will create table of contents as you write the text on Google Docs.
Chris, I so look forward to your weekly videos. In addition to always being informative, you, your style, and your chosen subject matter never fail to bring just a few minutes of sanity and calm to this otherwise insane world. Thank you so much.
Thanks for watching. :)
Relaxing by watching RoboNuggie on the telly after a hard day of explaining computers seems like a good plan.
The simplicity of the word processor reminds me of WriteNow for Macintosh (1984-1993).
I've been using Google docs since early 2008. I've written 11 books with all of the drafts in Google Docs. The running version history feature has really saved my sanity when I've accidentally overwritten important changes. So with countless draft files for books and scores of other documents, I have well over 1.5 million words written in Google docs. A million of those have been published.
Libre Office does everything I need.... I have found that Libre Office will even read old MS Works documents ( from the late 1980's ), something that MS Office 360 seems unable to do...
I recently came across Google Keep, and became an instant fan. Many similarities to Google docs. Thanks for introducing new "stuff" Chris.
YES. Many times in the middle of the night I access Google Assistant, just say "take a note," and in the morning my midnight rambling is all there --- and I never even had to open my eyes.
Just wait till they announce they're shutting it down and replacing it with Google Notebook. You'll do a complete 180 just because they want to rebrand and monetize it.
@@encycl07pedia-what??? Will they shut down Google Keep???
@@VitorMadeira Not so far, but they have a history of doing so. Google Plus, Hangouts, Play Music, and many other services they provided they unceremoniously shut down leaving users angry and frustrated.
They replaced Google Play Music with CZcams Music and added advertisements (and a worse app in general). They replaced Google Hangouts, the ultimate chat app that had SMS/MMS, IM, voice calls, and video calls with Chat (only IM). With Plus they didn't even bother replacing it. Those are just 3 of literally hundreds of products Google started and later shut down. I mean Google Docs files used to not take up Drive space, either.
My "favorite" part about these apps/services being shut down is that they never do it for a good reason.
Google Keep might stay available for free, but I wouldn't be surprised if they "sunset" it. On the plus side, they usually give you several months notice.
@@VitorMadeira They have a history of shutting down their products/services for little or no reason. Look up what happened to Play Music, Hangouts, Plus, or just search for the Google Graveyard.
I am so happy to see big tech companies listening to its users. A good customer service is always appreciated by all even though many explicitly don't express it. I am sure Google Docs will continue to be your faithful companion for years to come. Nice video!
The only positive of Google Docs for me is basically it's advanced spell-checking features on non-English languages are super accurate to my needs.
Very useful on my everyday work environments, especially if you touch type and save time on correcting things
I appreciate why many people would like the simple UI, the many useful features and the cloud storage aspect. We can all see how people in media type jobs with no interest in tech aspects of PC use would love the easiness of the Google Docs system: they can get their copy, designs, images, task lists, etc all done with a simple and intuitive tool - then resume their coffee and gossiping.
Yet all the work done to achieve this level of utility - as well as the ongoing overhead to maintain it all - can only come at a price.
Chris, you know damn well what this price is. It is having Google's data crunchers scanning, analysing, collating and summarizing your personal and business data.
In Google's case the essence of this data may not simply be sold to advertisers or their clients: today it can be used to conceptualize and refine AI models of human behavior. All without our permission.
No siree 😤
Chris, I'm glad you did a video on this. I was a big fan of MS Office for decades. I've been using Google Docs for about 10 years. I love Google's implementation. It looks like much of it was based on MS Office so adapting was easy. Collaboration on Google is outstanding. I also love the time control to review and restore documents revisions.
I'm pretty sure "Sod the users" is Microsoft's actual motto.
I find the drive interface and ability to find files so annoying.
Hmmm apparently Google listens and Microsoft still sucks. Listening to users is important. Microsoft doesn't care/
Wow! I'm not quite sure yet, but you may have just converted this ol' fuddy-duddy of a user from Libre Office! :) My previous hesitation was a security related issue . It still doesn't handle the one thing that I worry about, when I lose Internet access, but @ least chances of that are significantly reduced these days. Thanks again, Sir, for opening my eyes yet again!
Greetings Leslie. Here we are again!
Woah! I didn't know about that "image-to-text" feature! Thank you, kind Gentleman!
I'm a person who doesn't trust Google very much, but I have to say that their text and sheet editor are pretty solid. It's concise, intuitive, and practical.
as always, quality content, amazing host, truely awesome knowledge sharing, and even 14 years later this brief guide on Cloud Computing is still a ressourcefull masterpiece with such an ease of access that even a French guy like me had nothing but pleasur reading it ! Thanks again for sharing your knowledge with us since so long, sharing is caring as they say !
I agree with you 100%. There is another feature I like and that is the Read-aloud sidebar, it is really good for making a talk sound just right, with all the correct punctuations in all the right places. It really helps you out when you are flagging at the end of a busy day.
As an academic I use google suite frequently for collaboration, as it is easy to get everyone into editing (university pays google so everyone has an account). However for a more controllable formatting, after the text is done we import to Microsoft Office or LaTeX. And at home, for all my writings I am using pure text files with markdown.
Your diction and delivery are legendary
One million subscribers agree.
I never use the google doc format because on your google drive you will see the actual file is not hosted on your system.
if you use a docx you can still edit it in google docs AND the actual file is in your possession. which obviously matters in cases where you get your youtube account randomly banned like the terraria dev and so many people.
Since just saying something wrong on a youtube comment can make them ban your account, which bans the entire google account, which then means no access to any files you dont have yourself. thats liability.
i didn't know some of these tricks. thanks!
Self- Collaboration..... BRILLIANT! 😊
😁😁😁
I enjoy your humor.
Same here. It has a sort of innocence about it.
Yet we all know that the IT world is not free of baddies . . .
Oh, on the subject of MS word, we use it at work for assembly documentation, and in my experience it's beyond terrible. It likes to be too clever and move things around or completely loose data off page. It's as if you have to constantly fight to get the layout to behave how you want.
I understand Chris.
But I will not use it. Comfortable, yes. It is free so the user is the price.
in this particular case you are not exactly the price, they want you to buy the 2 tb subscription really
google dpes get money from you but is mostly from youtube and other services, the mail part with this addon os not a money maker untill you pay for those 2 tbs of storage
@@betag24cnData about you is the price you pay. It is not about the 2Tb IMO.
@@Plons0Nard in this case the data about me comes from youtube, but from a excell file i use 7 years ago in a shared folder from my old job
you are thinking in paranoid mode in general, being specific the money comes from ads and services sold, from this in particular, in tye free version, not much is done
Chris, the problem with your upload schedule is "what do you mean it's 2pm on Sunday, and three quarters of my weekend has already gone?!"
Sorry about that!
I've use Google Docs for ~a decade in consulting my business--it's great. Thanks for pointing out the OCR functionality, as well as Ctrl + Space to remove formatting. 👍
Chris`s quote of the day:
Microsoft say ... "Sod the users!"
Happy to be your #1 😊
:)
😲
Holy .....!
Whenever I think I understand you a little bit - you make a turn that baffles me :)
You can't put Professor Barnatt in a box.
I reviewed the privacy policies just now for Google Docs and was pleasantly surprised that they are quite good. I assume that Google has a strong motivation to leave those privacy policies in place or suffer a severe backlash. Very good video. Thanks.
Exactly so. All the myths being propagated here about privacy simply are not true. And you are right, Google would not have a commercial cloud computing business if it violated user privacy.
Learned something new there - again. :)
The part with text from images is completely new to me.
Thanks Chris.
Google docs is excellent for CZcams channels that focus on ECE. Especially when sharing schematics or other data rich documents. Informative video as always, thanks. A huge percentage of my Computer knowledge today can be directly traced back to the first of your videos I ever saw. Thank you for all you do to enlighten and elevate the masses.
-Jason Burchell( I took my name off my channel as I’m finally going to attempt to upload ECE , RF, SDR content and launch The Electronic Dilettante…blah, blah, blah) Thanks again!!
Nice video
I've never used Google Docs and from the look of it i may never.
I like the Grammarly and ProWritingAid add-ons. Help with writing pacing
Great post, many thanks, always good to know about different tools
We need an open source version of Google Docs.
like, libreoffice?
@@betag24cn I was thinking web based
Nextcloud is a pretty good solution.
Onlyoffice offers a plugin for next/owncloud. Chris, I really hope you cover that in another video. If you haven't already. It's a nice usecase for a pi :)
Isn caligra is like google docs
I do like it when you have a bit of a rant, especially with Microsoft as you are of course bang on!
Lots of good information! I forget sometimes to just use f11 to go full screen, and instead would just install as a web app Google Sheets or Docs.
Can't recall if you mentioned it in the sharing option, but I like to share a folder in Google Drive with full permissions to folks, so that we all can edit right away any doc inside the folder. I also will star the folder, so it's easy to navigate to whether on laptop or mobile.
Oh! I also didn't know about the CTRL+Space keyboard shortcut. Going to remember that one.
Thanks for the image tip Chris, didn't know that. I think the same can be applied to Windows updates, lots of functionality I don't need and specifically absolutely don't want. No matter what feedback is given they plough on.
nothing is "free"
you are the product.
So dramatic. Just ignore the ads
@@meatbleed That's an interesting viewpoint, especially since you don't need to pay attention to ads for them to cause problems
well, it is free for you in terms of how much money you paud to access the tool, but you are rigth, google gets money from you in other ways, i personaly think they get more from you on youtube than there
@@meatbleedignoring the adverts doesn't mean the adverts ignore you
@@meatbleed I like how you said ignore the ads instead of blocking them. Who surfs without at least an adblocker nowadays? I don't get it, especially with people who are computer-savvy.
People not using Google Docs concerned about security... and then they send .docx files over gmail 😂
Nice video Chris, I love google docs and also MS (offline) word and excel... both have advantages and disadvantages. It always depends on every user workflow. (I use both)
A great many thanks for your opening observation! So true.
It's not difficult to encrypt files sent through email, even Gmail, and sending the occasional file in the clear is a very different thing than handing Google on a silver plate every single bit of data that is important to you.
So yeah, you're WAY off base with that comment.
I use Sheets almost every day. It's very handy, when you work across different machines.
At the company I work for, we use Google Docs for stuff that might need to be viewed/edited by multiple people. You can control who, individually, can edit and/or view the document, so we can allow not only our colleagues to edit (or not) a document, we can allow clients to do so as well. It’s very convenient.
But whatever you allow, Google can always read it.
Are those edited docs automatically saved as a copy of the original? So I always have the original available to check what has been edited?
@@hansreynders6853 Yes, Google Docs has "revision history," so you can always tell who made what change and when.
@@andersyuran7725 Probably, yeah. But obviously one wouldn't use it for super-sensitive documents anyway, seeing as how it's on the cloud.
If you type something political that Google doesn't like, do you lose all your documents forever?
No. Google do not scan or interfere with Google Docs. Another of those urban myths out there!
"Sod the users!" I think that's the first time I've heard you say something like that 😀(look, I'm being a 12-year-old). I bet a lot of people wouldn't be so restrained. I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment BTW.
Maybe you can make comparison of office suite online or offline as future video?
I didn't know about the ocr part! Great!
Thanks so much for making this video. After years of using Google Docs I learned some new things. It would be great to see you make more videos like this on how you use Google and other products. It is not too late for any of use to learn new things. Cheers!! :)
lem with Google is that they often go their own way which forces you to stay in their ecosystem. We have this in our company and we have often to export the documents for our customers - and nearly every time we have to redo the design and style so that the exported document does look acceptable.
It has their advantages especially if multiple users have to work in the same document but you have to calculate the extra effort and incompatibilities.
It's more about Microsoft using their own proprietary and incredibly complex document rendering algorithm, which is understandable because Word has been around since the dark ages. Mac Pages and other third parties have pretty much the same issues with export features.
@@generessler6282With OpenOffice or LibreOffice I have not the same issues like with Google Docs. I could also replicate similar issues from OpenOffice or LibreOffice importing Google Doc exports - but this is tested just in fewer cases.
I would use google docs if it had an offline standalone version that I could save files to locally.
Thanks for demonstrating Google Docs. I should consider cloud word processors. I have a 2 TB Google Drive, but I've been using MS Office since my employer upgraded our Windows 3.1 systems to Windows 95 some time in the previous century. Now that I'm running Mint as the only OS on my computers, I stick to Libre Office and like you, I have Office in a Virtual Box image though I haven't opened it in 2024. Old habits die hard.
Although it is out of scope and should you need filler content, it would be nifty if you made a companion video for Google Sheets. When I worked, Excel was always open and running, though I was starting to rely Python and Pandas for data cleansing and analysis before taking sick leave. Now that I'm not working, I use Sheets for structured data storage for Python coding projects. As a Canadian, I do get annoyed that the YYYY-MM-DD standard gets changed to US or UK style automatically. (Edit: It seems that Google listened and I can use ISO 8601 date formats, but I am not sure if they can be set as default like in Excel.)
Yes I don't like the way Android locks the date format to the region. I live in a DD/MM/YYYY country, but prefer to use YYYY-MM-DD.
Why I use MS Word instead? Pen support. I annotate documents a lot in Windows, Android and iPads with a stylus and only Word has proper support. It seems that markup support is coming to Google docs, so we'll see how good and flexible it is, but so far this is a dealbreadker for both google docs and Libre office for me.
Good point. But how hard (or long) will it be before GoogleDocs adopt such a feature ?
I'm a Libre man myself. But after seeing this, I think Libre has to start bringing in voice-to-text, text-from-scan, sharing across devices and yes even your pen annotation features on the double.
@@benzflynn As I said Google has annouced a markup features (although from what they showed it looks more of an afterthought that a full feature like in Word). As for Libreoffice people have been requesting this for years and they don't listen (and I can understand, it's free and it's not something easy to implement I guess, so I doubt it's ever coming). Google docs is technically free but it's a way for google to sell their storage services and the products in general (so also their ads), not so for Libreoffice, so much less incentive.
It makes us reconsider my use of Libre Office. I did buy extra storage in Google Drive, 100Gb is dirt cheap! Good stuff! Carry on.
Wow Christopher, you really hit a divisive topic in this video! I can see how using google docs works well for you and I have always been tempted to use it myself too. But then I start wishing they supported zero knowledge encryption. And I know you've spoken to Google and they have said they don't scan docs, but then that makes me wonder if that is the case, then why don't they implement zero knowledge encryption on google drive? Your video is perfectly timed for me as I've recently lost my remote backup location and I am currently working out what the new one will be. Congratulations on your thought-provoking video and your million subs!!
Thanks for this.
Amazing introduction to Google Docs, I will forward and share. Thank you!
Google Drive is a blessing for me. It took me a while to adapt, since I was so used to Microsoft Office, but you later realize that Google's suite of products is more than enough for most average consumers, students and small businesses. As for the data privacy issues a lot of people are concerned about, after more than a decade of using Google for one thing or another, I've yet to see any negative effects of them having access to my personal information. Knock knock
Google Docs fan too. My Synology NAS downloads my Google Docs as docx every night so I have an automatic local backup. I then send those files automatically to another online service for backup.
I agree. They really have this working beautifully.
The only downside for me is Google Drive version control - it’s not possible to do a true ‘revert’ to an older version, like in Windows “File History” which restores the exact timestamp for the previous version.
Yes you can, just click on the history icon on the top right,
@@GLH8 But it doesn’t restore the previous timestamp.
@@bfapple I see what you mean. I’ve never noticed before
I still have an ancient Dell Optiplex 280 running XP with Office 2003, offline obviously. I have an old HP color laser connected to it and i use it for almost all Office needs. I will either print what i need or create it and save it to a flash drive and move it to my laptop to email it or back it up etc.
Truly wish they would bring back the Office 200/2003 style office.
Office 2003 was and still is brilliant.
Office 2007 is also excellent, and has the ribbon interface which takes a bit of getting used to but is effective.
Hang on to these personal software packages - they are excellent and powerful, it's all marketing BS to say they are out of date.
About the only thing I can't stand with Office 2003, especially with Excel, is that I can't seem to be able to search for words and names WITHIN the document. I despise that so much!
Christopher, this lack of menus is why I still use MS office 97 (which still works in windows 10 and 11). And google chrome STILL after over 15 years, lacks the menu bar :(
Edit: oops, I used an emoticon, err smiley... errr emoji i think it's called now, but I am 40 years beyond 12
Greetings.
Thorough review. And most of us must agree that Google docs is a great free alternative than to paying for Office 365, especially for non-power users.
OnlyOffice in this household. I would suggest very much limiting your reliance on Google outside of whatever your current occupation requires.
like being a youtuber?
@@betag24cnyeah, obviously you don't need to use Googles garbage office suite to record and upload videos, or live stream, etc.
While watching it occurred to me you may want to explore so-called "second brain" software, such as obsidian. With a wealth of collected documents over so many years, there's probably an opportunity hiding there, maybe a video, too.
Microsoft Word is a lot less fiddle-y. One thing I hate about Google Docs is moving images around, it causes it to scroll really fast when you move the image even slightly towards the bottom or top of the screen, instead of gradually increasing in speed. Sometimes images just disappear too if they’re pushed off the edge of a page, or you accidentally put them in the header and its copied to all headers across the document.
Though, Google Docs is completely free, and can run on any computer or device that has a good browser. My favourite word processor is Microsoft Word 2010 or 2007, though they arn’t supported anymore. If you want to use them, make sure you don’t select them as the default to open any files.
I had always been a bit curious why you liked Google Docs so much and appreciate this informative video. I’ve been planning to check it out and now have a better idea what to expect. Looking forward to your next video!
another informative video - straight and to the point - without being cluttered up !
For me the big feature in Google Docs is outline.
Appreciate the insight and the opportunity to learn about the Google tool. Given I have been using Microsoft Word and Excel since they where released into the market I find it hard to force myself into trying something new. BUT, you have stimulated my interest and given I really do not have anything more creative to occupy my time, I may give it a go. I enjoy 99% of your content and always look forward to it. Thank you and best regards.
Same/yes on all your points. Quattro was so much better than Excel 1.0, but was eventually forced to use it anyway. Now maybe Sheets...
I use Google Docs (and Sheets) for most anything that's not too sensitive and for which I want to be able to easily access on any modern OS I use (MacOS, Windows 10, Linux, IOS/iPad OS, & Android). For more sensitive stuff, stuff that requires features not yet present in G.D., or for strictly offline use, I use LibreOffice (with Mac, Windows, and Linux). The one exception is for Keynote style presentations for which I have used Apple Keynote or LibreOffice ( I haven't tried Google Slides yet). It's nice with Docs and Numbers to have every G.D. document always readily available any computer device/OS so long as you have access to a modern web browser or have the IOS or Android app installed.
Neither brown foxes nor lazy dogs were harmed during the making of this video - hopefully ;-)
IMHO, the privacy concerns with the biggest data harvester in history, outweigh any convenience they might offer.
There is an official Google Docs Offline Chrome/Edge extension for use on an offline machine.
Google do not harvest data from Google Docs.
@@ExplainingComputers I don't think anyone can definitively say whether it does or it doesn't. I prefer the safe route of not using "the cloud" at all, least when it's provided by such a notorious harvester. Local is best. 🙂
@@Maxume I'm sure your data must really top secret!
@@ExplainingComputers But they do harvest meta data. That is even more concerning because it is used for profiling and ad targeting the user.
The OCR feature is cool. Thanks!
Maybe Microsoft wants to keep its office web/desktop versions consistent.
Anyway, I really do prefer using menus over ribbons.
Also, I think the working offline feature can be helpful.
Thanks Chris!
Even though Google's privacy for its users is questionable at best, I like there services( maps, docs, spreadsheets, etc. ) There Phones are also pretty good
I was using a Chrome Book to run the scanner part of a Brother printer/scanner. Too much toner costs and I moved onto a laser. But the scanner works fine. I had a Brother app that worked with ChromeBooks over WIFI. Then it didn't. So, I hooked the Chromebook up via USB. Chromebook starts popping up toner out messages. 5 colors/5 messages. A couple of days later I get 5 NOTIFICATIONS FROM AMAZON about buying Brother toner cartridges. I don't remember signing up for that. That was a couple of weeks ago.
For me, privacy is of prime importance - to the point where these Google (and other Cloud) services are unusable to me.
The urban myths on privacy and Google are astounding. Google does not scan or otherwise access Google Docs documents.
@@ExplainingComputersOf course they do! How could they offer Google Docs as a free service unless they gain something from it? It's more personal data that they can gather about you and sell on for advertising services.
@@terrydaktyllus1320 While it would not surprise me in the least if your statement was true, I'm interested in any hard evidence that you may have.
Wow. It does more things then i thoght it did.
Thanks for showing us all. What we could use every day. That is way better then most Office Software around. 😊
Any Office suite tool looks perfect until you try to manage same documents mixing other Office suites, then the nightmare starts
Thanks for another great video Chris. Good tips all.
If I remember correctly, I was using Google Doc to create 365 pages of daily calendar. It got massively bogged down at the end, being a few seconds delay per character typed! I managed to complete the document uaing judicious use of search and replace, but ended up just abandoning the project. 😢
Rarely disagree with you but here I do.
Try using it without an Ethernet cable or a WiFi receiver.
It's not your data when it's tucked away on some far flung servers and archive centres totally out of your control.
Try using it when one day Google et al don't approve of the browser you're using or the location you're in...
Functionally and aesthetically it's not even close to Microsoft Office 2007 & 2010.
If you believe it is 'free' it is not - it's analysed and fed into data markets and AI systems.
This obsession with online applications is strange - all our sovereignty stripped away. Seems like we've gone full circle and the idea of a PC actually being a personal computer is fading fast - it's now just a terminal. Sad.
We are clearly never going to agree. But you can use Google Docs offline.
@@ExplainingComputers I didn't know that it could be used offline (as an installed application?).
Every day's a school day 🙂
So when are you releasing "Why I Love Google Docs (extended edition)" where you explain the long story behind why you spend most of your time in your free account? ;-)
:)
Brilliant and thanks, I've reconsidered whether I should be using Google Docs for more stuff now.
Greetings Susan.
@@ExplainingComputersGreeting Chris.
I don't trust Google. If I can avoid their software, I do. I'd like a) an android free phone b) my favourite content creators to at least consider using one of the new tech video services (even just a mirror)
But your favourite content creators have to earn a living, and CZcams remains the only video platform on which that is possible.
@@ExplainingComputersthat isn't entirely true. You can monetize content on other platforms too.
Call me old fashion but I don't trust cloud storage. I also don't trust anything from Google.
Noticed recently that google docs offer markdown support for headings, bulletins, bold, italic, code blocks and code snippets. Love this feature 👍
Yes i use GD with Grammarly for non-sensitive files and docs etc, great for cross device access. Also have Scrivner (notepad on steriods) for proper writing.
Voice typing is an excellent feature, especially given the extorionate pricing of dragon dictate.
Word has this feature as well.