Author Topic: Google Docs  (Read 10012 times)

Mr Bekkler

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Google Docs
« on: August 30, 2012, 11:41:19 pm »
This is a quick tutorial on how to set up a google doc on the cloud that you can link to and format to your desires for any fanfic or other writing purposes. It works a lot like OpenOffice or Microsoft Office except it's completely free, completely online, it constantly saves the document for you, makes backups easy, is always saved online instead of your computer, and you never need to download anything (though you can download a Google Doc in a format that can be used in other Office word processors)(Also it's a whole suite and has Excel-like and Powerpoint-like applications but I won't even get into those.)


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QhYkBvsEzSFfMvMKM-y4S_EHJlt_0WwGCf3OU_oV7tI/edit

You set up a google account and go into google docs (recently renamed google drive), create a new document.
Paste your written text in, go to the very beginning and click "Insert"->"Table of Contents" and then "Insert"->"Page Break".
Then go through and wherever you have a chapter name listed, like say "Chapter 1 - Waking Life", you highlight that and click "Format"->"Paragraph Styles"->"Heading1"->"Apply Heading". This will apply a "Heading" style to that text and when you refresh the Table of Contents, all "Heading"s will show up in a sequential list.

To get the link to share the doc, click "Share" at the top right corner and change it so that anyone with the link can view it. If desired, you could also add specific email addresses for people to view or edit the doc, or a combination of all of these options. It's really up to you, and then when you save the option, the link is provided and pre-highlighted for you (thanks, good-guy-google).

The steps are all below, I created the doc linked above with a dummy temp google account to show how quick and easy it is. Feel free in fact to play with the one I provided in the link, because I set it so that anyone who has the link can edit the doc.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2012, 11:49:04 pm by Mr Bekkler »

Mr Bekkler

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Re: Google Docs
« Reply #1 on: August 30, 2012, 11:42:17 pm »
Here are steps 5-8, apparently I can only upload 4 pictures at once even though the size limit is not a problem at all.

Mr Bekkler

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Re: Google Docs
« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2012, 11:43:26 pm »
And finally, steps 9-12 showing the completed document formatting. Any questions or cool things you noticed about Google Docs in general can go in this thread.