16 Secrets of Google Drive You’ll Never Know If You Don’t Read This

If you’re a Millennial or an avid Gmail user, chances are you’ve heard of Google Drive. If you don’t know what Google Drive is, it is one of the apps that Google provides. Google Drive allows for collaboration with your peers on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. It allows peers who are collaborating to edit the same document at the same time and it also has a chat feature, for team members to converse on the topic.

I found this really useful and cool article that goes in detail how you can fully utilize Google Drive. Below are 16 secrets of Google Drive provided from Mac World. This is a fantastic resource for college students and teams who need to collaborate in remote locations.

1. One really cool feature (which I wasn’t even aware of until I read the article!) is that Google Drive lets you sync the documents onto your Mac so that you can access your Google Drive files from anywhere. It’s like Google’s version of Dropbox for Mac users.
2. You can share your documents on Google Drive through social media sites. Need feedback? No problem, share it on Facebook. Want to show off your blood, sweat and tears through your work? Tweet it.
3. Want to whip up some holiday gifts? Use your Drive documents and photos at Cafepress to create mugs and T-shirts. The Spreadshirt Designer for Google Drive in the Chrome Web Store is also full of possibilities. You can fax documents directly from Google Drive with HelloFax, or use Wappwolf Automator for Google Drive to sync your drive with Dropbox, Evernote, Kindle, and Picasa, among others (Source).
4. There is actually a list provided on the MacWorld article for keyword shortcuts to help you navigate through Google Drive in a faster and more efficient manner.
5. Google Drive doesn’t just do English. Actually, it provides 65 languages, so you have the ability to choose your desired language on Google Drive. Need to spruce up your French skills? Change your Google Drive language to French.
6. Need to collect data with a personalized form? Google Drive has a feature called “Google Forms”.
7. Simple version of Table of Contents
8. Like to use JavaScript or want to hone those JavaScript skills? Google Drive has a feature called Google Apps Script. According to the MacWorld article, “For example, you can customize the behavior of spreadsheets, automatically email personalized Calendar invites to people who fill out Google Forms, or even create a monthly statistics report and chart of your Gmail activity.” Pretty cool, huh?
9. Google Drive has a “Slides” section, where you can go to edit your presentation slides.
10. Need to work with someone who doesn’t have Google Drive? No problem. Google created a solution to this problem by obtaining QuickOffice, which is on both Android and iOS.
11. Going to be somewhere with no Internet? That also isn’t a problem. The MacWorld article gave instructions on how to take advantage of this feature.
12. Need to find a document on Google Drive faster? No problem, search by the person’s name. As the MacWorld article puts it: “When you can’t remember a document’s name, but you do remember who shared it, search by the person’s name.”
13. You can also search by the document creator’s name in your Gmail since it is linked to your Google Drive account.
14. If you have Google Chrome, there is an extension feature that enables you to save anything you find to your Google Drive. I just downloaded it… thanks MacWorld!
15. The MacWorld article says that “When you’re working in a document, it’s a pain to open a new tab or webpage to see source documents. Instead, try the Tools > Research menu option to open a research pane right inside a document. Not only is this convenient, but the pane presents tools that let you easily cite and source content, and you can drag-and-drop images straight over into your document.”  I don’t really have a lot of experience on this section, but it is definitely beneficial for those research papers that college students have to collaborate a lot on with ensuring proper citations. Also makes it MUCH easier for that person who is assigned to check the “quality of the document” before sending it to the professor.
16. Google Drive has a chat feature so team members who are collaborating can talk to each other within the document. Much easier than having to text or e-mail each other or using a separate program to talk to the team.

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