Save your friends from outdated email—help them switch to Gmail

(Cross-posted from the Gmail Blog)

I switched to Gmail the first month it came out, mere seconds after receiving an invitation from a friend and two years before joining Google. Since then, I’ve invited hundreds of people, most of whom have happily made the switch to Gmail and never looked back.

But I have one friend, Andy, who’s the straggler in the group. A couple months ago, I sent out an email about a barbecue I was having. On the “To:” line, there were 15 Gmail addresses and then Andy. He stuck out like a sore thumb. Shortly thereafter, Andy was complaining to us about how much spam he got. That was the last straw.

My friends and I sat Andy down and talked him through how to import his contacts. We answered his questions, guilt-tripped him a little, and a few painless minutes later we were done. Andy had Gmail.

We all have a story like this. On the Gmail team, we affectionately refer to them as “email interventions.” We hear about them all the time: the cousin who finally switched from an embarassing address like hottie6elliot1977 to a more professional elliot.d.smith@gmail.com, a co-worker who helped his dentist switch after he heard her grumble about having to pay for IMAP access, etc.

It’s for these folks we created emailintervention.com, a site that makes it easier than ever to help your friends and family make the switch.



Staging an intervention is simple:

1. Visit emailintervention.com
   
2. Sign in and automatically identify who from your contacts has yet to make the switch, or just enter a friend’s email address manually
   
3. Choose from one of three intervention message templates (“straightforward”, “concerned” or “ embarrassed”), and add your own intervention video if you’d like
   
4. Send a customized email and follow up as needed

Your loved ones are counting on you. Even if they don't know it yet.

Posted by Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager

Google Apps highlights – 7/22/2011

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

We’ve added more than a dozen new features to Google Apps so far in July. Read on to learn about a few of our favorites: a new look for Gmail and Google Calendar, ways we’ve made Gmail safer and easier to use, a couple new mobile capabilities and more.

Preview new looks for Gmail and Google Calendar
A couple weeks ago we began rolling out a visual refresh to Gmail and Google Calendar, which is consistent with design changes happening across many other Google products. The idea is to make the interfaces even more focused, elastic and effortless. If you’d like to see the new look, you can try it out in Gmail and Google Calendar now.

Pick your favorite inbox style
In addition to Gmail’s new look, we added new options to let you choose an inbox layout that best suits your email habits. You can decide between Priority Inbox, important messages first, starred messages first or unread messages first—or stick with a classic inbox style.

Make multiple calls in Gmail
A while back we added the ability to place phone calls to land lines and mobile phones from your Gmail browser window for free or at greatly reduced calling rates. On Wednesday we made this feature better by allowing multiple simultaneous calls. You can place a second call by putting your first call on hold, or put your first call on hold to pick up another incoming phone call.


View ZIP and RAR contents from Gmail attachments
Before last week, when you received a ZIP or RAR attachment you had to download the file and extract its contents to view what someone sent you. Now you can simply view the contents of ZIP and RAR in your browser without the hassle of downloading and extracting. This is a faster, safer and more affordable way of viewing attachments than opening potentially harmful files with software on your computer.

Phishing detection
Gmail has also started keeping you safer by displaying more information about the origin of certain messages. Email coming from senders who aren’t in your contact list will display the sender’s full email address. We’ll also show you when messages come from an email-sending service (like a news site’s article sharing system) and display a warning when it looks like the sender may have spoofed a Gmail address.

Read receipts for business and government customers
Many organizations that use Gmail have asked for a way to tell if important sent email has been opened, and since Tuesday, Google Apps for Business and Government administrators can activate read receipts from the control panel. Administrators can control which users can request or return read receipts, and whether receipts are issued automatically or manually by recipients.

New spreadsheet keyboard shortcut menu and PPTX support
In Google Docs, this week we added a handy keyboard shortcut cheat sheet to help you work more quickly in spreadsheets. Just hit Ctrl+/ (or Cmd+/ on a Mac) to bring up the keyboard shortcut guide. We also launched support for PPTX conversions, so now you can bring all those PowerPoint files from your desktop into Google Docs, and edit them with your classmates and colleagues from the browser.


More options for videos in Google Docs
Recently we made it easier to work with videos that you upload Google Docs. Now you can embed Google Docs videos into Google Sites pages, embed them on other webpages and even add text captions to your videos.

Share files from the Google Docs Android app
In April we introduced the Google Docs app for Android devices, making it easier to find and open Google Docs files on your phone or tablet. A couple weeks ago we added the ability to share files right from the Google Docs app, so now you’re covered when you need to give others access to a document, spreadsheet, presentation or any other type of a file when you’re on the move.


Five new mobile site templates
The Google Sites mobile experience also got an upgrade. We added five new mobile site templates to make it easy to build and launch a site that looks great on the small screen. This video explains how:



Who’s gone Google?
It’s been another banner few weeks for new customers. A hearty welcome goes out to Aperam, Nexteer, Premier Salons, Quality Distribution and tens of thousands of other businesses that moved to Google Apps since our last update. We also welcome our new education and government customers, including the University of Connecticut and the City of Pittsburgh!

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Give Dad a ring with free calling from Gmail in the U.S.

Today is Father’s Day in many countries around the world, so whether your dad lives across the street, across the country or across the ocean, it’s a good day to let him know you’re thinking about him. Of course, email is a simple, quick way to check in with your old man, but it’s just as easy—and maybe even more meaningful—to call him right from Gmail.

If you’re in the U.S., you can use Gmail to make free domestic calls and calls to Canada. If your dad lives abroad, we have some of the best rates around, like two cents per minute to Australia, Argentina, France and many other parts of the world (unfortunately, those of you outside the U.S. will have to phone Dad the old-fashioned way).

And in case you don’t read this post in time, we've added a small note in the Gmail chat roster, right under the “Call phone” link, to remind you to give him a ring.

  
Happy Father’s Day from Gmail!

Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager

Google Apps highlights – 6/10/2011

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve made it easier to see recent interactions you’ve had with people in Gmail, added a set of customization options to Google Calendar and streamlined the discussions feature in Google documents. We also welcomed tens of thousands of new customers, including our largest governmental customer to date.

Gmail’s new people widget
The new people widget in Gmail shows up alongside email conversations and conveniently displays the contact information you have for people included on the message. When you click on someone in the widget, we’ll automatically show you a snapshot of the recent interactions you’ve had together, including email messages, calendar appointments and shared documents.

Calendar appointment slots
You asked and we listened: as of Monday, Google Calendar lets you set up blocks of appointment slots that colleagues, students and customers can reserve online. For example, professors can let students book time during office hours, and accountants can allow clients to make consultation appointments. It’s easy to embed an interactive calendar of your availability on any web page, so others can view and reserve your open appointments.

Default meeting lengths and more print options in Google Calendar
Last week, Google Calendar got two new customization options: adjustable default meeting lengths and new print options. If your typical meeting is longer or shorter than the default 30 minute appointment, you can tailor the default length once and spend less time changing the details of each meeting you create. If you prefer to have a paper printout of your agenda, Calendar now lets you print custom date ranges in addition to the standard day, week and month views.

Improvements to discussions in Google documents
A few months ago we introduced discussions in Google documents, and on Wednesday we improved the way you can converse with collaborators in a document. The discussion pane now shows the snippet of text being discussed, which adds context to each conversation, and you can view document statistics like how many people have recently viewed your document. We also made long discussions more compact by collapsing extended conversations and streamlined the format of email notifications for discussions.

Who’s gone Google?
Businesses and other organizations continue to migrate from legacy communication and collaboration technologies to Google Apps. Summer may be upon us, but Directski.com is preparing to help more people “ski for less” next winter by streamlining their operations with Google Apps. LXR Luxury Resorts & Hotels—with 7,000 employees and 20 hotel and resort properties—is moving to Google Apps to help their staff provide a more enjoyable guest experience. Among other uses, LXR’s human resources team is using video chat to conduct interviews instead of flying remote candidates to Florida.

This week we also gathered in Washington, D.C. with more than 100 government IT leaders to explore how state, local and federal agencies can increase productivity and conserve taxpayer dollars with our cloud-based solutions. As part of the agenda, we took some time to celebrate dozens of agencies that have selected Google Apps in the last few months, including the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). With more than 25,000 employees, contractors and associates who will use Google Apps for email, document collaboration, video chat and more, it’s the largest government agency to move to Google Apps yet.

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Google Apps highlights – 5/20/2011

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Over the last few weeks, we made improvements to instant messaging, increased capacity for saved contacts, added powerful data analysis with pivot tables in spreadsheets and introduced more flexible management tools for Google Apps customers.

Better AIM interoperability in Gmail and beyond
Google Talk is built on open protocols for instant messaging, making it possible for other IM networks to connect seamlessly with Google Talk. Yesterday we rolled out improvements to make chatting with your AIM buddies even easier in Gmail, iGoogle, Orkut and Google Talk on Android devices. Now you can invite your AIM buddies to chat from any of these places just by entering their AOL screennames, even if you don’t have or use an AIM account.

Room for 15,000 more contacts in Gmail
We’ve heard from a surprising number of super-connected people who wanted to save more contacts in Gmail than its 10,000-contact limit allowed, so a couple weeks ago we made Gmail better by supporting up to 25,000 contacts. You can also save even more information with each contact, so if you were previously bumping up against the limits, you should have a whole lot more extra space for your contacts now.

Pivot tables in Google spreadsheets
Google spreadsheets now has another tool to help serious dataheads make sense from large data sets: pivot tables. With pivot tables, you can easily summarize rows and columns of information, helping you quickly spot patterns in the information that you might not have noticed otherwise. If you’re new to pivot tables, we made a short video to show what you can do.



Customizable administration options for Google Apps customers
IT staff members in large organizations don’t all need the same level of control in their Google Apps environment. For example, a university IT help desk should be able to reset lost passwords for students, but probably doesn’t need to modify school-wide email settings. On Monday, we made Google Apps much more flexible by introducing delegated administration, which lets full administrators assign partial administration privileges to other individuals.

Who’s gone Google?
In the last three weeks, we’ve seen more than 60,000 organizations choose our cloud products for their communication and collaboration needs, and this week a couple international customers stood out from the crowd. Oxygen Design Agency based in Toronto, Canada chose Google Apps and avoided a big investment in traditional email servers when their previous email solution started to break down. With Google Apps, their downtime woes have disappeared, designers can stay in contact when they’re meeting clients and the system is much simpler and more affordable to manage.

EAT. has more than 100 restaurant locations and 1,700 employees in the U.K. They serve fresh, healthy food—as well as kilobytes to customers through technology programs like an iPhone ordering app, free in-store Wi-Fi, a Twitter feed and a tap-to-pay system. EAT. selected Google Apps to replace their old system to get away from complex, costly upgrades, achieve hassle-free scalability as their business expands and securely support a wider array of mobile devices.



I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Launch a mobile business with The Guide to the App Galaxy

The Guide to the App Galaxy, which we showed off last week at Google I/O, is designed to help mobile app developers—regardless of platform—navigate the complexities of launching an app and building a business on mobile. As you maneuver through the "galaxy” using the arrow keys on your keyboard, you’ll get the basics about app promotion, monetization and measurement—with tips from Google as well as successful developers.

There’s no exact blueprint for mobile app success and no developer’s journey is the same, which is why The Guide to the App Galaxy contains different advice and best practices from developers around the world. Here are some key insights from developers who have successfully built a business on mobile:

Rovio Mobile
Making money on mobile is not black and white—there's actually a lot of color. There are a number of business model options that aren't exclusive to any particular platforms.

Best, Cool & Fun Games
Offering your app for free lowers the barrier for users to download and try your app. The free version of Ant Smasher went viral because players could easily recommend the game to their friends through social media sites and word of mouth.

The Weather Channel
Don't forget to think beyond mobile. If you have a website or even a television channel, you can cross-promote your app with banner advertising or in-show mentions to drive downloads.

If you’re a developer who has successfully navigated the App Galaxy and launched your own app, you’ve probably picked up some tips of your own. Share your insights by creating your own journey and sharing it with your friends. We might even feature your story on The Guide to the App Galaxy.

The Guide to the App Galaxy is currently available in English, Japanese, Korean, French and German. We’re continuing to expand the guide to other developers around the world with new languages and new content like case study journeys. For more information about our solutions for mobile app developers, visit www.guidetotheappgalaxy.com/about.

Posted by Lauren Usui, Product Marketing Manager

Bringing Google Apps educators together through regional user groups

From grading math quizzes with Google forms to plotting plant growth in a motion chart, teachers around the world are constantly generating new, creative ways Google Apps can improve instruction.

To make it easier for educators to share great ideas beyond their school walls, we’re introducing eight Google Apps Regional K-12 User Groups across the U.S. and Canada. These groups will enable educators and administrators to learn from one another and collaborate through community discussion forums, shared resources, events and webinars.

If you’re an educator interested in sharing and learning new ways to use Apps in your classroom, visit the Enterprise Blog for more information and to sign up.

Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps for Education Team

Graduate with Google Apps

Millions of students will leave college this year with more than just a diploma. There’s a good chance that the graduating class of 2011 will also be experts in another field: Google Apps for Education.

If you attended a university that’s “gone Google” or just sought out Google products on your own, you’ve learned how to use Apps to collaborate and communicate with your professors and peers. Perhaps you’ve used Gmail to power through email efficiently, Docs to revise group projects without the hassle of attachments, Calendar to keep up with extracurriculars, forms to quickly collect and analyze data or Sites to organize resources around your projects. Using these tools has equipped you with valuable expertise for life after college—just like the finance skills you learned in your major or the Spanish language abilities you picked up while studying abroad.

With this in mind, we’ve created the Google Guides program to help you take your Google Apps expertise to your future job. When you become a Google Guide, we’ll equip you with resources to introduce and implement Apps in your workplace. You’ll make an immediate impact by saving your company money and facilitating collaboration among coworkers. Once your company is up and running with Google Apps, you’ll get to continue using all the Apps tools you learned and loved in college—not to mention be known as your company’s in-house Google expert.

If you’re not sure where you’ll be picking up your paycheck yet, don’t fret. The Google Guides program also provides tips and tools for your job search, including resume templates.



You can sign up as a Google Guide at google.com/apps/graduate and read our FAQ for more details. And for those of you not graduating this year, you can always get information specifically for students on the Official Student Blog.

Posted by Lauren Kolodny, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Google moms share tech tips for your family

As a Googler I often take my work home with me—in a good way. With two young boys at home, life is always busy, so my husband and I are always looking for ways to save time, get organized and enrich our lives in simple ways. Because the products I beta test and use in the office have become an integral part of my own family life, for Mother’s Day this weekend I’d like to share some favorite tips, including a few from other Googler parents.

Capturing and sharing memories

• Instead of keeping 500 crayon masterpieces, store digital photos of all your kids’ artwork in Picasa Web Albums
• Collect trip or party photos in one place by letting all of your paparazzi upload their snapshots to a collaborative online album
• Tag friends and family in Picasa photos so you can easily create and share personalized collages, gift CDs/DVDs or movie slideshows
• Use Picnik to edit your Picasa Web Albums photos. Use the “Create” tab to add text, stickers, frames and other effects to your photos—your kids can help, and you can email them as digital cards to distant relatives
• Safely share home videos with family by inviting them to view a private YouTube video
• Keep a running family history by encouraging relatives around the world to contribute stories and biographies in a shared Google doc or blog

Communicating and entertaining

• Video chat through Gmail for free with long-distance grandparents and friends—this is also great for connecting kids with their parents when traveling
• Entertain kids on the run with kid-friendly YouTube channels—like Sesame Street and School House Rock—Android apps or your own photos and videos on your mobile phone (kids love watching themselves!)
• Have your kids help you create a video card or a cartoon on YouTube
• Explore the world from the couch—fly around Google Earth on your mobile phone or tablet
• On camping trips, use Sky Map to explore and name constellations. You can even travel back in time to show your kids what the sky looked like on the day they were born
• Read the classics—like Anne of Green Gables, The Wind in the Willows and Grimm’s Fairy Tales—for free from Google eBooks; for older kids, many books that are required reading for school are also free. Google eBooks are accessible and readable on devices your family probably already has—like laptops or smartphones

My son Kai chatting with his dad while on a business trip

Organizing and planning

• Plan a group trip by creating a shared Google document or site with proposed dates and activities. Navigate around traffic and find the nearest pit stop with Google Maps for mobile
• Using My Maps, get family and friends to help you collect ideas for activities in your area that are family-friendly
• Schedule family events, playdates and birthdays on a shared Google Calendar
• Track everything from infant feeding schedules, holiday gifts and thank-you notes to travel packing lists and family budgets with Google spreadsheets; look at the Template Gallery to customize yours
• Use forms in Google spreadsheets to send invitations to birthday parties and collect RSVPs (there are templates for these, too)
• Use the ingredient filter in Recipe View to find recipes that exclude ingredients your kids won’t eat—like [meatballs without onions]—or use the time filter to find easy recipes your children can help prepare like chocolate chip cookies that take under 30 minutes
• Share a shopping list on Google Docs—whomever goes to the store can easily access it from the new Google Docs app on Android

I hope these tips inspire moms (and dads) to celebrate your family this weekend. Here’s hoping you can save time and energy to focus on having fun with your kids!

Posted by Cathy Cheng, Webmaster Manager and proud mom of Kai (3 years) and Jin (10 months)

Google Apps highlights – 4/29/2011

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

In the last couple of weeks, we’ve helped you personalize Gmail in new ways, made our applications speedier to use, brought text recognition and editing powers to Android phones, and given you a glimpse into the inner workings of a Google data center.

Customize Gmail with a favorite photo
For a long while, Gmail has had themes so your inbox can reflect a bit of your personality. Now, you can set Gmail’s background to a photo from your computer or Picasa Web Albums. So if Gmail’s standard theme choices don’t quite float your boat, now we’re sure you can create a theme you’ll love.

Faster multitasking in Gmail with the Background Send Lab
Features like nearly-instant search and integrated instant messaging help you save time in your inbox, but we’re always looking for new ways to speed up your experience in Gmail. On Monday we released a new feature in Labs called Background Send that can shave off a few seconds each time you hit “Send.” With this feature enabled, you can start working with other messages while your outgoing message is processed in the background without slowing you down. Give it a try from the Labs tab of Gmail Settings.

Streamlined file uploads in Google Docs
On Monday, we sped up the Google Docs experience with improvements to file uploads. Now you can upload a whole folder at once, and if you use Chrome, Safari or Firefox, you can even drag and drop files from your desktop into the documents list or specific collections. You'll also see an upload progress window right in the documents list.

New Google Docs app for Android
Thanks to a brand new Google Docs app for Android, it’s easier to browse, search, edit and share your documents right from your mobile phone. You can even create new documents by snapping a picture of text with your phone’s camera, and thanks to Google Docs’ optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities, words in the image are converted to text that you can continue editing from your phone or computer.

100 new fonts in Google Sites

With more design choices in Google Sites, you can create better looking sites that match the look and feel you want to achieve. This Wednesday, we added 100 new fonts to the text formatting options in Google Sites, so it’s easier to make more personalized pages for your organization, project, classroom or business.

Get a sneak peek into a Google data center
Businesses, schools and individuals considering Google Apps often want to learn more about the technology and procedures in our data centers designed to help keep your data safe, secure and available whenever you want it. Since we can’t invite everyone to tour one of our data centers, we thought we’d pull the curtain back with an in-depth video:



Who’s gone Google?
A hearty welcome goes out to over 50,000 businesses, schools and organizations that have switched to Google Apps in the last two weeks. Several have shared their stories on the Google Enterprise Blog, so you can learn about how Cinram has improved communication and collaboration across 20 manufacturing facilities in North America and Europe, how Gibson Sotheby's International Realty is empowering hundreds of mobile workers like never before, and how the states of Rhode Island and Missouri are making Google Apps available to more than a million students and 100,000 staff members.

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Google Apps highlights – 4/15/2011

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

In the last few weeks we’ve improved Google Apps with easier email snafu avoidance, better document and spreadsheet printing, stronger business security features for Android and more. The pace of entire organizations switching to Google Apps also continued to build, and many have shared their stories about moving to the cloud.

Recipient suggestion features graduate from Gmail Labs
We’ve all made the embarrassing mistake of forgetting to add an important email recipient, or even worse, sending an email to the wrong person with a similar name as someone else. To help you avoid such a digital faux pas, we experimented with Gmail Labs features that could notify you while drafting a message if it appeared you had addressed your message incorrectly. We heard lots of positive feedback about these Labs, so on Wednesday we rolled out recipient suggestion features for all Gmail users. Keep an eye out for the tips that show up beneath the address box!

Pagination and better printing for documents
Google Docs speeds up collaboration right in the browser between classmates and colleagues, but people often want to see how documents will look on paper before actually printing. On Tuesday we advanced Google Docs another notch by adding pagination—the ability to see where page breaks fall. We also made document printing a whole lot better on Chrome. Printing is now a simpler operation right from the browser’s “File” menu, and what you see in your browser is exactly what you’ll get on paper.

Improvements to spreadsheet printing, too
As of Monday, you can now print spreadsheets from your mobile phone with Cloud Print, building on the mobile document and email printing capabilities we announced earlier this year. You can print from most mobile browsers that support HTML5 to any cloud-connected printer. We also made improvements to spreadsheet printing from desktop browsers, with new options for printing spreadsheet titles, sheet names and page numbers.

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office interface improvements
If your school or business wants some of Google Docs’ collaboration magic in familiar Microsoft Office software without upgrading Office or deploying SharePoint®, then we think you’ll like Google Cloud Connect. People can work together on the same files at the same time in Word, PowerPoint® and Excel® without the agony of attachments. We recently added 38 new language interfaces and a top feature request: the ability to minimize the Google Cloud Connect toolbar.

Better Android security and productivity for businesses
Last week we treated our business and education customers to three new Android features: storage encryption for Android 3.0+ devices, a streamlined contacts experience that makes it faster to find and connect with people in your organization and the ability for users to locate and secure lost or stolen Android 2.2+ devices without burdening IT administrators.

Who's gone Google?
Since our last update here, over 60,000 businesses have moved to Google Apps. We’ve profiled quite a few on the Google Enterprise Blog recently, including Boxx Group, South Carolina REALTORS, Just Salad, 3Tailer, and our favorite switch story of all, Contoso.

Thousands of schools, nonprofits and other organizations made the move as well. Welcome to Boise State University, Edina Public Schools, ESSEC Business School, Monash University, Oakwood Junior School, the Georgia Department of Corrections and The Phoenix of New Orleans.

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Pagination comes to Google Docs

(Cross-posted from the Google Docs Blog)

Exactly one year ago, we launched a new version of the Google document editor, created from the ground up to take advantage of the latest capabilities in modern web browsers like Chrome. In particular, we baked in a way of supporting text features that aren’t natively included with browsers—for example, we added a ruler for controlling the margins, text that wraps around images to create eye-catching docs and discussions for a more collaborative editing experience.

Today, we’re doing another first for web browsers by adding a classic word processing feature—pagination, the ability to see visual pages on your screen. We’re also using pagination and some of Chrome’s capabilities to improve how printing works in Google Docs. Pagination is rolling out now and should be available to everyone by the end of the day.

Pagination adds visual page breaks while you’re editing your documents, so now you can see how many pages of that report you’ve actually finished. Because we’re able to show you individual pages, we can improve the way other features work too: headers now show up at the top of each page instead of just at the top of your doc, manual page breaks actually move text onto a new page and footnotes appear at the bottom of the pages themselves.

If you prefer editing documents with a continuous layout, you can hide page breaks by selecting the “Compact” document view from the “View” menu.

Pagination also changes what’s possible with printing in modern browsers. We’ve worked closely with the Chrome team to implement a recent web standard so we can support a feature called native printing. Before, if you wanted to print your document we’d need to first convert it into a PDF, which you would then need to open and print yourself. With native printing, you can print directly from your browser and the printed document will always exactly match what you see on your screen.

For now, native printing is only available in Google Chrome, but we’re hoping other browsers will implement the same web standard so everyone can have the best possible printing experience with Docs.

Pagination and native printing are great examples of how modern browsers are making it possible to take the best parts of the desktop experience and bring them online. Please share your feedback on the Google Docs forum.

Posted by Luiz Pereira, Software Engineer

Google Apps highlights – 3/25/2011

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

We’ve been busy over the last few weeks adding better discussion tools to Google Docs, improving collaboration within traditional productivity software and making it faster and easier to work with information in your email inbox. Google Apps administrators can also now view detailed information about how their users are being more productive with our collaboration tools, and control how quickly new features are released to their organizations.

Better discussions in Google documents
Productive discussions can help teams write better documents, and last Wednesday we introduced improvements to how you can converse about documents within Google Docs. Profile pictures and timestamps make it easy to see who made a comment and when, and you can direct a comment to someone using an @mention. You can follow discussions with notifications right in your inbox—and even continue a discussion from your inbox by replying to the notification email. Instead of deleting a discussion when it’s wrapped up to remove clutter, you can now mark discussions as resolved so you can go back later and see how the discussion played out.



Data filtering, new chart options and more in Google spreadsheets
We’ve added a heap of frequently requested features to Google spreadsheets over the last few weeks. First, you can now filter spreadsheet data to hone in on rows that match criteria you set as filter options. For example, a sales manager could choose to view transactions processed by Peter and Phil, but not those managed by Andrew, Cindy and the rest of the sales team.

   

We’ve also improved charting in spreadsheets by making it possible to plot non-contiguous data. Multiple chart ranges help you create great charts without rearranging your data.

In addition, you can now hide cell gridlines or entire sheets in Google spreadsheets—giving your spreadsheets a cleaner look by removing extraneous formatting and data from view until you need it at a later time.

  

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office
As we continue to add functionality to Google Docs, many people are finding that that they no longer need software-based word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software. And now we also have an alternative for people who want streamlined collaboration but aren’t quite ready for 100% web productivity tools. Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office brings multi-person editing, automatic backup and complete revision history to Microsoft Word®, Excel® and PowerPoint® in Microsoft Office® 2003, 2007 and 2010. By bringing this functionality to existing versions of Microsoft Office, organizations can work more efficiently with the software that they’ve already paid for and implemented.



Smart Labels in Gmail Labs
Chances are, you get lots of email from newsletters, group mailing lists, account alerts and other automated systems. These messages aren’t spam, but they’re probably not your most important emails either. To help you separate and organize these kinds of messages, we introduced the Smart Labels feature in Gmail Labs. Once you turn on this feature from the Labs tab in Gmail settings, Gmail will automatically categorize incoming Bulk, Forum and Notification messages and label them appropriately, removing clutter in your inbox to help your most important messages stand out.

Improved attachment viewing in Gmail
We’ve also made viewing attachments in Gmail faster, easier, more affordable and more secure by adding browser-based attachment viewing for 12 more file types: .XLS, .XLSX, .PPTX, .PAGES, .AI, .PSD, .DXF, .SVG, .EPS, .PS, .TTF and .XPS. So instead of downloading attachments and then opening files with software you may or may not have for each format, you can just click the “View” link next to the attachment in Gmail. This will instantly display the attachment in your browser—no software required.

Collaboration dashboard for Google Apps customers
To help customers see the productivity benefits of Google Apps at a glance, we recently introduced a new collaboration dashboard. From the Google Apps administrative control panel, IT managers can view insights about how their users are working together with Google Docs. This dashboard offers a new level of transparency that traditional software can’t offer, and we think this kind of information will help businesses invest in technologies that actually get put to use, not software that—according to customers—sometimes sits idle after being installed.

New Google Apps release process
Our customers love Google Apps for lots of reasons, but the ability to rapidly get new features—like the ones described in this post—without having to install complex patches or upgrades rises to the top. Instead of large, disruptive batches of new features that only come every few years, people see a continuous stream of better functionality week after week. Still, some customers with more complex IT environments have asked for a bit more advanced notice so they can prepare for what’s coming. For these organizations, we’ve introduced a new release process for Google Apps features. Customers can choose to get new features immediately when they’re available, or have at least a week to prepare for new features after they’re initially introduced. Along with this new choice, we’ve launched whatsnew.googleapps.com, where customers can learn more about new features in the process of being released.



Who’s gone Google?
The pace of new customers coming onto Google Apps continues to accelerate among schools, businesses and other organizations. In the world of education, we’re happy to welcome the University of Alberta, Anhanguera Educational and thousands of other schools to Google Apps. In fact, over 50 percent of the NCAA® Championship bracket has gone Google!

We also invite you to read how businesses and government agencies including Dominion Enterprises, Macomb County Circuit Court and Clerk, Revevol, Mad Genius, Cadillac Fairview, Sun Windows, Hammock and The Standard Agency are saving money and helping workers be more productive with Google Apps, joining more than 3 million other businesses that have gone Google.

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Great documents come from great discussions

(Cross posted on the Google Enterprise Blog)

The discussion about a document is as important as the document itself, but until now, there hasn’t been a great medium for this discussion to happen. Creating comments in documents is a start—but comments can be overwhelming and at times feel one-sided with no resolution.

So today we’re introducing a better way to provide document feedback—discussions in Google Docs. With this feature, we want to encourage rapid and seamless discussions, help the right people participate, as well as integrate discussions with email in an intuitive way. For a look into the way discussions work in Google Docs, watch our video:



Now you can easily tell who made a comment and when—with timestamps and profile pictures—and you can keep track of the conversation with email notifications and reply to comments directly from your email. Your discussions will be better and so will your documents. And all of this is possible because Google Docs lives in the cloud.

Discussions is rolling out now to everyone with personal Google Accounts as well as to Google Apps customers on the Rapid Release track.

You can read more about the new features on our Google Docs blog.

Posted by Scott Johnston, Group Product Manager, Google Docs

Happy 1st birthday to the Google Apps Marketplace

A year ago today, the Google Apps Marketplace launched with 50 web apps integrated into Google Apps, making it easier for organizations to customize web-based solutions for their specific needs.

We’ve come a long way since then, and now offer 300 apps across 11 categories, including a new set of education apps. Each web app in the Marketplace provides meaningful integrations that range from single sign-on convenience to contextual gadgets inside of a user’s Gmail inbox.

Read our post on the Enterprise blog or visit the Apps Marketplace to learn more—and join us in celebrating a year of expanded Apps functionality.



Posted by Harrison Shih, Product Marketing, Google Enterprise

New ways to experience better collaboration with Google Apps

The Google Apps collaboration tools have steadily and swiftly improved over the last couple years, and many companies have found that Google Docs and Google Sites are faster, simpler and more powerful than traditional software for the majority of common tasks, especially tasks where people need to work efficiently together. Today, we’re launching two new initiatives to help more people experience the productivity benefits of web-powered collaboration.

First, Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office is now available worldwide. This plugin for Microsoft Office is available to anyone with a Google Account, and brings multi-person collaboration to the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications that you may still need from time to time. The plugin syncs your work through Google’s cloud, so everyone can contribute to the same version of a file at the same time. Learning the benefits of web-powered collaboration will help more people make a faster transition to 100% web collaboration tools.



We’re also introducing the 90-Day Appsperience program, a way for companies that currently use cumbersome legacy systems to see how web-powered tools help their teams work together more effectively. A nominal fee covers 90-day access to Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Cloud Connect and more, as well as assistance from Google experts to help coworkers quickly become more productive together. And companies trying Google Apps can use the new collaboration dashboard in the Google Apps control panel to assess the value of our tools. The dashboard provides data on how people are using Apps to collaborate more efficiently without the hassles of document versions, check-in/check-out or attachments.

If you’re curious how your company could become more agile, efficient and innovative with better tools for teams to work together, read more about these updates on the Google Enterprise Blog.

Posted by Shan Sinha, Google Apps Product Manager

Google Apps highlights – 2/18/11

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This Friday update includes improvements to the Gmail mobile web app and Google Docs interfaces, a feature long-sought-after by many Google Voice fans, a powerful account security improvement and stories from several of the companies and government agencies that have recently moved to Google Apps.

Priority Inbox for Gmail mobile web app
Keeping what’s most important front and center is especially helpful on the smaller screen of your mobile device, so we were happy to release Priority Inbox in the Gmail mobile web app. If your phone’s browser supports HTML5, you’ll see the familiar Priority Inbox sections and message importance markers when you visit gmail.com.

Doc list refresh
The documents list in Google Docs got a visual makeover and tune-up on Monday. We added a helpful set of filters to quickly narrow down search results, a right-side preview panel to show details about a selected file and the ability to view uploaded media like photos and videos. What we previously called “Folders” are now called “Collections,” and we’re making the whole interface snappier to save you time.


Port numbers to Google Voice
Last month, we updated Google Voice in response to one of our top user requests: the ability to port existing phone numbers to Google Voice. If you have a beloved phone number that you want to keep as your primary digits, but want Google Voice to ring multiple phones when someone calls, Number Porting might be for you. There’s a $20 charge for Number Porting, and your wireless carrier may charge an early termination fee, so we recommend that you check with your carrier before porting. For more details, check the Google Voice Help Center.



2-Step Verification available to all
Now everyone can help keep their account safer with 2-Step Verification, which we released to Google Apps business customers last year. This advanced security feature works by requiring you to sign in with something you know (your password) plus something you have (a code from your mobile phone). 2-Step Verification helps ensure that the person trying to access your account is the real you.


New setup wizard for Google Apps administrators
Organizations using Google Apps often get up and running in under an hour, but we wanted the setup experience to be even faster and easier. Last week we added a new Google Apps setup wizard to the administrative control panel, which gives guided help for creating user accounts, migrating existing mail to Gmail, routing user email to Gmail and more.


Who’s gone Google?
Recently we’ve seen a surge in new public sector customers—including the Administrative Conference of the United States, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks and the City of Rochester Hills. These organizations are not only saving taxpayer dollars with Google Apps, but also boosting the productivity of their ranks.

More than 50,000 businesses have also started using Google Apps in the last three weeks. Pithy Little Wine Co., DeyFischer Consulting, Manna on Main Street and Hunter Douglas are just a few of the businesses we’ve profiled recently who are are going 100% web.

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager