Overview

• Core Apps
• Transitioning to Gmail
• Acceptable Use and
  Data Security

Using Google Apps

• Getting Started
• Using Gmail
• Using Google Drive
• Using Google Calendar
• Using Google+
• Using Google Groups
• Using Google Sites

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• Learning Opportunities
• Technical Support
• Questions & Answers

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• Campus Implementation

Office of Information Technology (OIT) > Google Apps > Using Other Apps

Using Google Drive

With Google Drive, you can create and share word processing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations online, and collaborate with others on group projects. Students and teachers can create documents using these state-of-the-art tools, then communicate and collaborate with each other in real time right inside a web browser window.

Some of the things you can do with Google Drive:

Documents:

• Create new documents or upload and convert Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML, text (.txt) and other types of files.
• Easily format and spell-check your documents.
• Invite others by email to edit or view your documents.
• Edit documents online with whomever you choose.
• View your documents' revision history and roll back to any version.
• Publish documents online to the world, as web pages or post documents to your blog.
• Download documents to your desktop as Word, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF, or HTML.
• Email your documents as attachments.

Check out the Google documents Getting Started Guide.

Spreadsheets:

• Create new spreadsheets.
• Import and convert .xls, .csv, .txt and .ods formatted data.
• Export .xls, .csv, .txt and .ods formatted data and PDF and HTML files.
• Use formatting and formula editing so you can calculate results and make your data look the way you want it.
• Chat in real time with others who are editing your spreadsheet.
• Embed a spreadsheet, or individual sheets of your spreadsheet, in your blog or website.

Check out the Google spreadsheets Getting Started Guide.

Presentations:

• Create new presentations, then share and edit presentations with your friends and coworkers.
• Import and convert existing presentations in .ppt and .pps file types.
• Download your presentations as a PDF, a PPT, or a TXT file.
• Easily edit your presentations.
• Insert images and videos, and format your slides to fit your preferences.
• Allow real-time viewing of presentations, online, from separate remote locations.
• Publish and embed your presentations in a website, allowing access to a wide audience.

For more information about or for help using Google Drive, visit the U of M Google Collaborative Learning Space. Information about accessing and using Google Apps also is available from the Google Help Center.

Google Drive Change Notification

Currently Google offers a feature that will notify users when collaborators make changes to or edit shared documents only for spreadsheets. To receive an email notification of changes to spreadsheets that you either have created or that have been shared with you, in your spreadsheet, click Tools>Notification Rules or Share>Set Notification Rules.

Google Tips

Collect survey data quickly and easily with Google Forms
If you use Google Drive and need an easy and convenient way to gather data, Google Forms makes it easy to capture, collect and organize information from numerous people. Used as surveys, Google Forms lets you or to collect any type of information such as reports and data, and also will capture the email addresses of those who complete your form, if you choose.

You can create a form from your list of docs list or from any spreadsheet. You may send the form or survey to anyone you want, and it's not necessary for the recipient to have a Google account. Recipients can respond to the survey questions right inside their email, or by clicking on a link in the email and responding online. Form responses are collected automatically in the creator's Google spreadsheet.

As a Google Apps user, you also can choose to capture and record the email addresses of people who fill out your form. To do this, select the checkbox next to Automatically Collect Respondent's <yourdomain.com> Username while you create the form. Survey recipients will see a message at the top of the form explaining that their username will be collected automatically.

You also can embed your form into a website or blog.

More information about using Google Forms is found at the University's Google Apps training site at https://sites.google.com/a/umn.edu/glearning/description/lesson-7, and
additional information also is available in the Google Help Center at http://docs.google.com/support/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guide.cs&guide=27248, and
http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=87809.