In its everlasting wrestle to copy options that Microsoft 365 and even Workplace has had for aeons, Google Docs is getting – be sure you’re sitting down – collapsible headings.
That is good – it’ll hold paperwork from feeling cluttered or unruly, we’re simply at a loss as to why it’s taken till 2023 for this to occur.
The announcement (opens in new tab), posted on the Google Workspace updates weblog, revealed that the change will arrive shortly for Google Workspace and Private customers however, as tends to occur to us, we discovered that the characteristic isn’t but out there for us particularly.
Making a phrase processor match for function
We’re not being contrarian for clicks after we assert that Google software program has all the time been behind the instances – whether or not it’s deciding to chase the AI zeitgeist after Microsoft finds success in that space or nonetheless missing reorderable headings within the doc define, which means I a lot want to first draft long-form work in Microsoft Word.
And it’s a disgrace that Google is treating artificial intelligence (which, as we’re being urged to grasp in the mean time, is solely a type of machine studying) because the be all and finish all.
One of the simplest ways to reinforce a productivity tool isn’t to throw in options that commerce on buzzwords and guarantees of a private assistant to do your be just right for you. Much less bold options, unconcerned with grabbing headlines however that are altogether extra essential at making work bearable.
Google is clearly going for just a little from column A and and just a little for column B with this method. Its glad medium is one thing just like the “smart chips” throughout Google Workspace, permitting paperwork to include hyperlinks to different ones, recordsdata, folks, or occasions, making them higher at centralising info.
The “sensible chips” are good, in that “sensible” right here means “handy” somewhat than “actually sentient”. I really feel like I’m on a theme right here, having written about the ills of AI in office software comparatively not too long ago, however I would wish to revise what I wrote there.
It’s not a lot that I should be dazzled by innovation to maintain me acutely aware, I simply want to have the ability to get by means of the day with out eager to throw my cloud-driven office software out of the window.
So, Google, take be aware: make it straightforward to export photographs from Docs with out making me obtain a zipped .html file of the entire doc, do the reorderable define factor, and simply usually step again in time to 2003. That each one sounds cheap.
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