The spreadsheets are now improved

Apr 18, 2007 09:01 GMT  ·  By

Google Docs & Spreadsheets, also known as the Google Office suite, gets another important update that allows users to manipulate and work with charts easier than before. Today, the search giant revealed some new features of the service that will help users organize the cells and the sheets and design charts using some simple methods. According to Yoah Bar-David, Software Engineer, Google Tel-Aviv, the idea of this latest release came from a common restaurant need that requires a useful way to manage the finances. Although the company didn't mention it, the goal of this feature brings Spreadsheets close to Microsoft Excel, the unconfirmed rival of the Google Office suite.

"Now he is asking me how to add charts to his spreadsheet, and he is not the only one -- many people have asked us about this. So today we are unveiling a quick, simple way to add charts to your spreadsheets: select the cells you want to use for the chart data, click the new chart icon in the toolbar, and, in the popup dialog, select your chart type and customize it," the Google employee described the latest improvements.

Earlier this day, Google confirmed the company's plans to develop a presentation tool after the service was discovered a long time ago by a Google blogger. At that time, he mentioned the upcoming solution will be entitled Presently and will represent the presentation tool that will complete the office suite designed by Google among with Docs and Spreadsheets. After this last improvement was confirmed, it's somehow obvious the search giant plans to challenge the Redmond giant.

These are all the Google Docs & Spreadsheets as they were mentioned by the Google employee:

- Named ranges: you can define a name for a range of cells, and use this name in formulas to refer to cells, for example write =sum(expenses) instead of =sum(c12:e17). This helps make calculation logic clearer to write and understand. Check it out under the "Formulas" tab. - Cell comments: Attach comments to individual cells, great for additional information or for collaboration on a single cell. - Bi-directional text: The ability to properly view and edit text in right-to-left languages like Hebrew. This is very important for our local community here in Israel. - A quick way to duplicate a sheet. - A new right-click option to search the web for the text in a cell.