Alternatives to Google Docs for Different Workflows

Google Docs has new tricks to try: an audio button to hear your writing read aloud; an optional AI helper to summarize your doc; an activity dashboard to see who is viewing your work; and colorful templates to add visual spice.

A billion people use GDocs, making it the most popular free writing tool in the world. It remains reliable, free and easy to use. Read on for an update on what’s new and notable.

5 notable new Gdocs features

1. Get AI help compiling a new doc 🧑‍💻

“Help me create” is a new command for building a doc out of existing ones.

* Select File > New > Help Me Create and type in a prompt.

* How to use it: Mention existing docs with the “@” sign and describe the new doc you’d like to create out of existing ones. I used this to generate an action list out of a feedback summary document.

* Caveat: Requires an eligible AI plan or Google Workspace.

2. Listen to your writing 🎧

Have an AI voice read back your writing.

* Select Insert > Audio Buttons. Choose from seven upbeat voices.

* When to use this: I like listening for awkward phrases or clunky transitions when editing my work.

* Requires an eligible Google Workspace plan or individual AI subscription.

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3. See document activity 📊

A new dashboard lets you see who else in your org has viewed a doc and when.

* Select Tools > Activity Dashboard

* Tip: Adjust your privacy settings within the activity dashboard if you don’t want your doc views to be showed to others.

* See when a doc has been shared and with whom, alongside a a chart illustrating when comments have been added.

* Caveat: Requires Google Workspace; not available in solo free accounts.

4. Insert new “building blocks” into docs 🧱

Include an AI summary of your document, a decision log or other templated, editable text blocks.

* Select Insert > Building Blocks and pick from a lengthy list of options.

* Tip: Use the email block to draft a Gmail message within your doc — or ask AI for help starting it, based on what’s in your doc. Then send it to Gmail as a draft you can revise.

5. Try new templates 🎨

Google has added 40 new designs to the 55 already in the template gallery.

* Select File > New > From a Template to see the additions.

* What’s good: The new project roadmap and onboarding templates are nice. The existing resume, letter, and proposal templates are also well-designed.

5 of the most useful GDocs features

1. Tabs let you create sections within a doc

One doc instead of many. Don’t create 20 separate files for each project. Use a central doc instead with multiple tabs for organization. Share everything in one place.

Try using tabs for…

* A long project. When you’re writing something with multiple sections, create tabs to organize your work. Stat: docs can include up to a million characters.

* Collaboration. Each person can take their own tab. No more typing over others’ words.

* A class or meeting. When teaching or leading a meeting, create a single doc with instructions and questions. Duplicate the tab for each participant, or create distinct tabs for each topic. Rename the tabs. Now everyone’s input lives in an organized, collective doc.

Tips for tabs

* 🎍 Emoji-enhanced titles. Decorate the title of any tab with an emoji to separate sections visually.  

* 🔗 Share deep links. Within the three-dot menu next to a tab’s title, choose the “Copy a link” option to share a link to a specific tab. That makes it easy to return directly to an important spot.

* ↗️ Reorder tabs. Drag tabs up or down to reorder them. Drag one into another to make it into a subtab.. 

* 📋 Outline view. Use the “Show Outline” option in the three-dot menu next to a tab’s title to navigate through subsections. 

Limitations

* No printing or downloading all tabs. Annoyingly, you can’t print or download everything in the the various sections at once. Solution: Go to Google Drive to download the full document, including all its tabs. Or print one tab at a time.

* No granular privacy. You can’t set privacy levels distinctly for each tab. If the doc is public, each tab is public too. If the doc is private, you can’t let people see one particular tab.

Design docs for the web

Pageless format. Many of the docs we create never need to be printed. So GDocs now offers a design option for docs you’ll only use on screen. It lets you include wider images and eliminates artificial page breaks. See a gif of Pageless view.

How the pageless format is useful

* Cover image. Add a photo, drawing or illustration at the top of a document as a visual header. 

* Collapsable sections. Click the triangle next to a section header to hide the text within it. That’s helpful for giving others a streamlined view of a doc.

* Auto-adjusting images. Images and line breaks adjust to your screen size.

* Better table view. Wide data tables are easier to navigate. On printable GDocs, tables sometimes get cut off. 

* Adjustable text width. You can adjust the text width (View > Text width) in a pageless doc. That’s helpful if you prefer broader margins or you’re on a particularly wide or narrow screen.

Tips 

* Switch modes. You can toggle between pages or pageless mode by going to File > Page Setup. 

* Set a default. If you always prefer one or the other, mark it as your default in the Page Setup same menu. 

* Change background color. If you want a white text on a dark color background like this, just change the background color as I did in this gif. 

* Get help. See Google’s help page for more info. 

Limitations

* Missing features. Page numbers, headers, footers, watermarks, and columns won’t show up in pageless format.

* Hidden cover images. It can be confusing to encounter different capabilities in each mode. Having your cover image hidden when you switch into Pages mode is odd.

What else is new in Google Docs ✨

* Proofreading. Check for spelling, grammar, conciseness, and passive voice. Requires AI functions to be turned on. See it in action on a prior draft of this post.

* Markdown. This lets you quickly format text using simple symbols, like *ital* to turn something into italics or **bold** to make something bold. Enable it under Tools > Preferences.

* Smart Chips. These special snippets of text allow you to paste in a live link to docs, sheets, or slides to show a preview of that material. Or type “@” and the name of a person, place, or calendar event to insert a preview that pops up when someone scrolls over the item. See Google’s help explanation.

* AI Editing. Test out GDocs’ AI for summarization or editing suggestions.

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Good alternatives to Google Docs

* Coda is underrated. Create interactive docs and link them to your calendar, CRM, email, or other services like Slack. Note: Coda was recently acquired and integrated into Grammarly’s suite of tools.

* Craft remains my favorite tool for creating visual handouts.

* Lex is like GDocs with a built-in AI assistant & custom prompts for editing suggestions.

* Scrivener can help you keep long writing projects organized.

* iA Writer offers a simple, minimalist writing view.

What’s your favorite Google Docs feature? Leave a comment👇

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