Google today made another step towards having your (church) office online. Let me back up.
It’s pretty clear the fine folk at Google have their sights on Microsoft, or really any operating system. Why have anything as pedestrian as software on your own computer if you can have access to software on a Google server? The future, they they say (or hope) is “in the cloud.”
They’ve moved long past searching. You can manage your email, maps, news feeds, weather information, maps, social networks, mailing lists, web sites, library, videos and other forms of information. They also support free and open source software development. It’s really amazing. (Perhaps a bit too much; I’m already planning for a post-Google life and more about non-Google options later.)
Through Google Docs, you can use a word processor and spreadsheet online, and work collaboratively. (I can’t think of an easier way for a national committee to draft a document, say.) But it isn’t really a replacement for a proper office productivity suite. (As you know, I promote OpenOffice.org if you need one.)
Now, Google Docs users can add one of hundreds of templates to make business cards, letter head, calendars, newsletters, workflow tools and slide presentations (“Powerpoints”). And you can tailor them to fit. I’m excited to try.
For details and other new features, see what’s new.
what i love is the ability to create online forms that dump into a spreadsheet. priceless!!!
Joseph, this sounds amazing. I have recommended to our church a paid (if cheap) service, http://surveymonkey.com , but this might be all that’s needed. Surveys are nothing but online forms, but only the ability to use the data in a spreadsheet or database (preferably Filemaker!) makes it useful