Back in April, Google announced the ability to create drawings from within its Google Docs Web-based document collaboration tools. The drawings that came from this added functionality included seating charts, flow charts, maps, data visualizations and other illustrations. Today, Google has announced that users can now share their drawings with the world via the Google Docs template gallery.
Users can upload a drawing to gallery, as well as view and download those created by others. The drawings can be sorted by category, language, rating and even by those being used the most by Google Docs users. Sample drawings include things like timelines, website wireframes, mobile development mockups, and mapping templates.
The addition of the gallery is a nice feature, making it easier to Google Docs users to share and use one another’s drawings and templates. While the drawing tools available from Google are a long way from competing with traditional desktop solutions, they are a signal of a growing trend as more and more services make their way to the cloud.
Pew released a study today showing that many believe most computing will be done through online applications in 2020, rather than desktop-based applications. Soon, however, it’s likely that a company like Adobe will create full-fledged online versions of their Creative Suite software, and over time desktop installs of the software will become less and less practical.
If that future is a mile away, the current iteration of Google Docs may be just the first step, but as they continue to push new features and services – like sharing drawings in the template gallery – more and more users will become comfortable doing more in the cloud.
