Google Promises to Make Google Docs Available Offline Soon
For the last few weeks, Google has been soliciting product ideas for Google Docs. Since the start of this program, just under 4,000 users have submitted about 2,000 suggestions. Today, Google announced its plans to give priority to three of the top ideas. These include better header and footer functionality, the ability to create vertical merge in spreadsheets and – most importantly – making Google Docs available offline.
Coming Soon: Offline Mode
Out of the three new features that will likely appear in Google Docs soon, an offline mode is likely the most interesting one for the majority of users. A few years back, Google used its own Gears technology to make most of its apps available offline, but Google canceled its support for using Gears to make Google Docs available offline in May 2010 and has yet to replace it with a new tool.
Not Coming Anytime Soon: Google Fonts in Google Docs and Docs as Gmail Attachments
At the same time, though, Google also put a damper on some of the most requested features like adding Google Fonts across all Google Docs tools and making Google Docs available as Gmail attachments. As Google Docs community manager Teresa Wu noted, though, Google will keep these ideas “in mind for future improvements.”
When?
It’s not clear when Google plans to roll these new tools out, but chances are that the company has already been working on all of these new features for a while and that we will see more announcements soon.
