Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides mobile apps can finally edit Microsoft Office files

Google today announced a major update for Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides mobile apps. In addition to several new features, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides mobile apps can finally edit Microsoft Office files. Until now, you need to convert Microsoft Office files to fully take advantage of G Suite feature. Google will be bringing Office editing to Docs, Sheets, and Slides mobile apps on Android in the coming weeks, with iOS to follow later this year.

In addition to Office files support, Google announced the following new features:

• Breeze through Slides presentations: With the growth of virtual meetings, teams are increasingly turning to visually-rich content—often in the form of slides presentations—to keep everyone engaged and aligned. We continue to enhance Slides, making it easier for you to present, create, and review presentations from anywhere. Today, we’re announcing a new viewing experience in Slides, with a vertically scrollable stream of slides that you can pinch-to-zoom. This new view helps you review slides faster, and you can easily switch to editing or presenting content. We’re rolling out this feature on Android over the next few weeks and on iOS in the coming months.

• Stay focused when reading in Docs: Linked content can enrich documents with useful information, but it can be distracting and disrupt your reading flow if clicking a link means opening another window or app. That’s why we’re bringing the link previews you know from Docs on the web to our mobile experiences. When you click on a link in Docs, you’ll see a card with dynamic information about the content, such as the owner and latest activity for Drive files, or titles and descriptions of public links, along with a visual thumbnail. With this information, you can stay focused and decide whether to open linked content. Link previews in Docs are already available on iOS and will be rolling out to Android over the coming weeks.

• Give your eyes—and your battery—a break: Docs, Sheets, and Slides now support Dark theme on Android, making it easier for you to work in low-light environments and keep your battery alive longer. We’ll be bringing this feature to iOS in the coming months.

Reliably create and collaborate on content, from anywhere

Not having to wait until you are back at your desk to write a memo, edit a spreadsheet, or assign an action item means that your team can accomplish more, faster. Check out these new features that help accelerate team collaboration.

• Write faster and with fewer errors, in Docs: Every week, more than 3 billion keystrokes are saved with Smart Compose in Gmail, which uses Google AI to help you compose emails. Earlier this year, we launched Smart Compose in Docs on the web to help you write documents faster and reduce the chance of spelling and grammatical errors. Now, we’re bringing the power of Smart Compose to mobile, making it even faster and easier to write documents on the go. Smart Compose in Docs will roll out to G Suite customers over the next few weeks, on both Android and iOS.

• Have a focused dialogue around your content: Comments are an important tool for team collaboration, helping your team have discussions in a Doc, Sheet, or Slide, and enabling action items that keep your team moving quickly. We’re improving the user interface for comments and action items in Docs, Sheets, and Slides on mobile, making it easier for your team to collaborate on content from anywhere. With a larger, clearer commenting interface that makes it easier to scroll through and respond to comments and a quick access button to reply and @mention others, having a focused discussion with comments will be even easier. These updates are available on Android and will be rolling out to iOS in the coming months.

• Respond to comments directly from Gmail: Last year, we introduced dynamic email on the web, which makes it easier to take actions (like responding to comments) right from a Gmail message. Instead of receiving individual email notifications when you’re mentioned in a comment in Docs, Sheets, or Slides, you’ll now see an up-to-date comment thread in Gmail, and you’ll be able to reply or resolve the comment, directly within the message. We’ve extended dynamic email to the Gmail Android and iOS mobile apps, to help you and your team save time and stay productive, even when you’re not at your desk.

Source: Google