There were a few updates to Google Docs last week. Discussions, a new feature we covered previously, received some improvements – most notably, the ability to see how many times a document has been viewed. Google Docs also added a new font, made it easier to restore deleted sites and the spell checker gained an additional feature.
Document Statistics
You can now view document statistics. Clicking the “Discussions” button and then the “Document stats” link will reveal graphs of views and discussions in the past seven days.
Discussions
Discussions got a few tweaks:
- Each comment thread now shows the the selected text for that particular thread.
- E-mail notifications no longer use reverse chronological ordering. Instead the selected. and most recent comments are included at the top of the e-mail, and the other comments are included below that in chronological order.
- Long discussions are automatically collapsed to reduce clutter.
Ubuntu
The Ubuntu font was commissioned by Canonical for inclusion in its Linux distribution Ubuntu. It was designed by Dalton Maag. According to Google’s announcement, the font is designed to be used in many sizes, ranging from small captions to document body text to larger poster headlines.
Ignore All in Spell-Check
This is a minor but useful update: when using the Google Docs spell checker, you now have the option to ignore all instances of a word. Previously you could add a word to your own dictionary, but that would mean it would be ignored in every document you opened in Google Docs. Ignore all works on a per-document basis, so you don’t have to commit to adding a word to the dictionary in order to temporarily ignore it.
Restore Deleted Sites
Google already offered the ability to restore a deleted Google Site, but you needed to know the URL of the site you wanted to restore. As of last week, you can now view a list of your deleted sites from the My Sites dashboard. Sites will appear here for 30 days before being deleted permanently. From this list you can choose to restore a site, or to delete it permanently.
