One of the first moves from Google's Data Liberation Front is the option to take your documents out of Google Docs with a new Convert, Zip and Download feature. You'll find the new feature under "export" in the More Actions menu. You can download multiple docs at once - wouldn't be music of a data liberation feature otherwise, right? - and that includes text documents, presentations and spreadsheets in the same batch. Downloads are limited to 500MB at a time, which shouldn't be a problem for the typical Docs user.

The Data Liberation Front is an engineering group within Google, pushing to make it easier for users to get their data out of any Google service quickly and for free. Google Docs exporting is just the first: in fact, they've got a whole list of Google services and the best ways to move your data into and out of them. Currently, about 2/3 of Google services meet the Front's standards for data exporting, so they still have plenty more work to do.

Google Docs Viewer can display Powerpoint presentations, PDFs and TIFF images right in your browser, without adding extensions or downloading the files. The problem is that you have to manually open the Doc Viewer by pasting in a URL. There's a way around that, though, thanks to a slick userscript with an unwieldy name: "PDF/PPT/TIF viewer with Google docs."

With the script installed - you'll need Greasemonkey in Firefox or Greasekit in Safari - links to PDFs, PPTs and TIFFs will automatically open in Google Docs Viewer. If you need to download or print them, no worries: you can do that from with Docs Viewer as well.

[via Lifehacker]

Gmail Labs keeps getting better at integrating other Google products into Gmail The latest addition to Labs is Google Docs Previews, which recognizes Google Docs links in your email, and lets you view Docs inline, right from Gmail. To turn it on, go to Settings in Gmail, and then hit the Labs tab. Enable "Google Docs previews in mail."

If you're a hardcore Google Docs user, being able to preview documents from Gmail is a fantastic boon to your workflow. You can keep responding to mail without having to click through to Docs or open another tab. The only thing that would make it better would be a Quick Edit option, in case you need to make a couple of changes on the fly. Google Docs Preview is the latest in a line of other "preview" Labs for Gmail, including YouTube, Flickr, Yelp, and Picasa.

Google Docs has always been a decent solution for collaborating on individual documents, but users have been frustrated for some time by the lack of support for sharing multiple files at once. Google recently heard their demands - delivered via the Google Docs product ideas page - and added folder sharing. Now you can not only set the same sharing permissions for a whole folder full of docs at once, but also upload multiple files simulataneously.

To organize you docs quickly, there's a new "folders" dialogue at the top of your docs screen. You can check items and then click on "folders" to set which folder they're in, even as a batch. Google also brought back an old favorite feature: "Items Not In Folders," because feedback told them that a lot of people used it for drafts or to queue items to work on.

[via CNET]

Google must have been reading our back to school series, because the Google Docs interns have added a bunch of new features designed specifically for students. There's something for everyone, whether you're writing papers or doing problem sets. Although Google is highlighting thiese improvements as useful to students, some of them could definiteltly come in handy in a nonacademic situation.

For those of you taking math classes, there's an equation editor, so you can actually take math notes on your laptop without a special app. Chemistry students will be happy to note the addition of superscripts and subscripts, making it easier to put the 2 in H2O.

Google Translate is now available from within Docs, which is of general interest, but should appeal specifically to language students. For students conducting surveys, there's now an option to proceed to a different question depending on a participant's answer. If you're just writing a paper, you can take advantage of additional bullet styles and the ability to export footnotes as endnotes if necessary.

Over at Google OS today, Alex Chitu mentioned a "hidden" embeddable document viewer that is part of Google Docs. The viewer can be embedded in any web page to enable inline display of PDF and PPT files.

Interestingly enough, the viewer has also made its way into some recent changes to the Chromium source code. If Chrome detects that it is running on Chrome OS, the --enable-viewer switch turns on viewer integration. After that, Chrome will "intercept HTTP requests for documents that GView is capable of displaying and redirect the user to the appropriate URL for viewing."

It's a logical step, since you'd presumably be online surfing with Chrome anyway. Don't want to be redirected to Google's Viewer whenever you click on a supported document type? You'll no doubt be able to disable the feature with a command line switch as well, or at least hack together a Userscript to retool things.

Heck, it may even be added to the Personal Stuff screen in Chrome's options panel. It's all speculation at this point, unless someone else comes up with some new, blurry digital photos.

Here's an idea I wish I had thought of first: instead of backing up files from your PC to the "cloud" of some online storage service, create a way to back up data from cloud to another. Gladinet's already doing it (for Google Docs users, anyway). With the latest version of Gladinet, you can back up your Google Docs data to Amazon S3, Windows Live SkyDrive, Box.net and more. The backup process can also be automated, so it'll take place behind the scenes, with no work required on the user's part.

Sure, backing up Google Docs might not be such a big deal, but the principle is solid. Arguably, the toughest thing about selling new users on the cloud is convincing them that their data will be safe when it's not stored on a device they can see. The extra security of being able to back up crucial data to multiple systems, in case one provider has an outage, makes the cloud look a heck of a lot more reassuring to the unconverted. For now, though, it's just a good way to back up your documents.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

We've covered Box.net before -- the file storage site with collaborative tools and a really great iPhone app -- today the company has launched a redesigned site and even more tools to make online collaboration easier and more effective.

Last year, Box.net added the ability to let users invite other collaborators to view or edit documents. Coupled with Box.net's OpenBox platform, you have a really slick light content management system that allows you to store, share, and group edit documents, spreadsheets, images and more. Today, even more features have been added to aid in project and team management.

Some of the highlights:

• Profile pages for each user that can be customized to show their role in the current project and their contact information and recent project activity
• Discussions that can take place across your shared workspace. You can also comment on individual files
• Bookmarks -- it sounds simple, but it's actually pretty cool because you can share a URL and the rest of the group can then comment on it and its findings.
• Updates - you can see updates across all your various projects to see what the newest discussions, edits and uploads are, all from one page.

Welcome to Googleholic, your weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:

• Google SearchWiki lets you customize results
• Google adds new features to BlackBerrys and iPhones
• LIFE Magazine's photo archive comes online
• GrandCentral App comes to Mac
• Google plans to work with OEMs to pre-install Chrome
• Access Google Docs within Gmail

Welcome to Googleholic, your weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:

• YouTube adds new features
• Gmail, the Google Toolbar and SMS messaging
• View Office Open XML files in Gmail and Search
• New Chrome release
• Random Roundup

In this edition:

• Docs spreadsheet is getting a facelift
• More admin controls for Google Apps Gmail
• Project 10^100
• Map Maker launches in 17 more countries
• Google and perpetual beta
• Google Grab-Bag

Welcome to Googleholic, your weekly fix of everything Google!

In this mega-huge-fantastic edition:

• YouTube and Pulitzer Center launch journalism contest
• More iGoogle bling
• Gmail Labs introduces new Reply options
• Open source sample Android applications
• New features for Google Docs
• Google Mobile App for BlackBerry
• Mobile Search adds My Location

In this edition:

• Google apologizes for e-mail downtime
• Docs spreadsheet gets new features
• AdSense for Feeds is launching
• Google Reader improves sharing
• First Android phone to launch in Q4

A lot of desktop word processing and text editing apps feature templates you can use to jazz up your documents -- or make them look terrible, depending on your opinion. Now Google Docs gives you the same option, with a new template gallery. There are over 300 templates, featuring everything from resumés to cards to calendars.

The selection of different templates is impressively versatile. Expense reports, presentations, invitations -- it's all there. Styles range from minimal (basic blue bars) to ostentatious (robots!). Something that immediately struck us as clever is the selection the Avery Dennison-sponsored themes, so you can print to those Avery labels and business cards that every office seems to be up to its ears in. If you use templates in your desktop writing app of choice, you'll probably also find a use for them in Google docs. Although the designs are hit or miss, there are enough of them that you should be able to find what you're looking for.

[via Lifehacker]

Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:

• Live blog with Google Docs
• Google Mobile App for iPhone
• App Engine Hack-a-thon in Chicago
• Google Sites domain mapping
• Google Notebook bookmarklet
• Google News new design