GOOGLE DOCS

Export all your Google Docs Files with One Click

See how easy it is to export all your Google Docs files as a zip file in a single click using the Google Takeout service.

 
Do you want to put all your Google Docs files on a USB drive before you take that road trip? The Google Docs website does offer an easy option to help you download all your documents in one zip file but there’s another simpler alterative that you may want to give a try– it’s called Google Takeout.
Once you have logged in to Google Takeout with your Google Account, select the Google Docs service and hit the “Create Archive” button. It will create a zip file with all your Google Docs files and you can either keep the browser window open while the archive is being readied or download that file later from the Google Takeout website.
Google Takeout will export your Google Documents in standard Office file formats by default – Excel for spreadsheets or PowerPoint for Presentations – but you also have an option to export files in either PDF or OpenOffice formats.
Google Takeout is part of dataliberation.org, a Google project that wants to make it easy for you to import and export data out of various Google products. The same tool may also be used to export your Picasa photos and Contacts data out of Google Servers though, surprisingly, it doesn’t offer Gmail export yet.
Coming back to Google Docs, here’s a quick video that shows how easy it is to export your Google Docs files using Google Takeout.

Add Stock Photos to your Google Documents

Learn how to add royalty-free stock phographs to Google Docs. Stock images are now available in Documents, Presentations and Spreadsheets.

 
Google Docs is integrated with Google Image Search to help you quickly find and insert web photographs in your documents. The results are filtered to only show images that have been licensed under Creative Commons and labeled for commercial reuse so  you are legally allowed to insert these images in your documents.
Other than Creative Commons, there’s a new image search option available in Google Docs that will help you find professionally shot photographs for your documents. Google has partnered with stock photography services like Photos.com to offer royalty-free stock images inside Google Docs, just like Microsoft PowerPoint.

How to Insert Stock Images in Google Docs

While you are inside the edit view of a document, go to Insert –> Images –> Stock Photos and use the search function. The collection of stock photographs available inside Google Docs isn’t as big as what is offered by Microsoft Office but that should possibly change once Google signs up with more partners.

Enable Email Notifications for your Google Forms

Forms in Google Docs are a good choice for creating polls and surveys. You can get instant email notification as soon as people fill and submit your forms.

 The spreadsheet forms in Google Docs are an almost perfect tool for conducting online polls and surveys – they are free, the forms are mobile-friendly and there’s absolutely no limit on the number of people who can participate in your polls.And since all all replies are directly saved in an online Google Docs sheet, it becomes all the more easy to analyze data.

Get Email Notifications with Google Forms

Google Docs can also send you instant email notifications as soon as people fill and submit your online form. Here’s how:
Create a new form in Google Docs, if you haven’t done that yet, add the necessary fields to the form and save your changes. Now go back to Google Docs and open the spreadsheet corresponding to that particular form.
Choose Tools –> Notification Rules and select the option that says Notify me when “a user submits a form.” You can also set how frequently you would like to be notified – if you have created a “Contact Me” form, the “email right away” may be a good choice but for mass polls and surveys, you may use the daily digest feature.
For more tricks, check the Google Docs Guide.

{This article was recently updated to match the new Google Docs layout}