Google is finally updating the last old-school editor in the Docs suite

Oct 18, 2011 17:04 GMT  ·  By

Google is finally updating is Presentations app in Google Docs. While all of the other editors got a major update last year, Presentations has only now been updated to the new underlying tech layer powering all Google Docs editors.

However, after it's done migrating all users to the new Presentations editor, Google is finally rid of the old Docs technology.

That said, it will still be around to handle documents created with the old editors.

"A year and a half ago, we released completely new document, spreadsheet and drawing editors," Steven Saviano, Software Engineer at Google, wrote.

"Google Docs has been picking up speed ever since with more than 60 new features and millions of new users. Today we’re rounding out the suite by previewing a new version of presentations with faster collaboration and more features," he explained.

One of the big improvements the new generation editors bring is real-time collaboration. Collaboration has always been a big draw for Docs, but the old technology had its limits.

The new editors enable real time collaboration, every edit, every change is almost instantly see by all working on a document or, in this case, a presentation.

But that's just one of the new things. Google boasts that the new Presentations editor comes with 50 new features, among which transitions between slides, animations for livelier presentations, more themes and the ability to add drawings as well as rich tables to presentations.

The new editor is now available for everyone, but you have to opt-in to use it. Google deemed it necessary for the new editor to go through a testing phase to make sure everything is working and to give users enough time to adjust to it.

The old editor will still be around and Google won't be retiring it any time soon to ensure that your old presentations still work. In time though, the new editor will become the default.