An enhanced Google Docs experience on Android tablets

Wednesday, October 5, 2011 | 10:02 AM

(Cross-posted from the Google Docs blog)

Earlier this year, we introduced the Google Docs app for Android. Since then, many users have downloaded the app and enjoyed the benefits of being able to access, edit and share docs on the go.

Today’s update to the app makes Google Docs work better than ever on your tablet. With an entirely new design, we’ve customized the look to make the most of the larger screen space on tablets. The layout includes a three-panel view, which allows you to navigate through filters and collections, view your document list, and see document details, all at once.

Looking at the details panel on the right side, you can see a thumbnail to preview a document and its details before opening it. From the panel, you can see who can view or edit any doc.

New 3-panel view for improved browsing



Autocomplete makes sharing with others on the go even easier


These features are now available in 46 languages on tablet devices with Android 3.0+ (Honeycomb) and above.

You can download the app from the Android Market and let us know what you think in the comments or by posting on the forum. Learn more by visiting the help center.

18 comments:

Joshua Talley said...

This really is a nice navigational update. Much better than the phone-style menu.

What would really make this application exceptional is to have desktop-style editing available on a tablet. My tablet is similar in power to my Chromebook; can I at least choose to try using the desktop version, instead of being redirected to the error page?

Nicola Bonelli said...

but where is the realtime collaborative editing? it is simply impossible to use!

jnzavrl said...

Has really noone notices the UI is exactly the same as feedly apps UI?

Micheal said...

Full screen mode for presentations?

Stellar said...

Love the update, but needs a better edit mode. Keep up the good work

Cybgo said...

thanks for the update, it's much nicer, but still waiting to edit my documents on my tablet, that is the essential thing :-)

Blue Bird said...

A nice post to inform about the new technology and the Android and Google Docs are both fantastic. So there combination can make a fabulous Business mobile phone to meet the requirements of the users.

e30ernest said...

Good update and nice use of the extra screen real-estate of tablets. Been tinkering with it on my Galaxy Tab 10.1. Awesome work!

- Ernest
Mobile Payments Solutions

ztx said...

Awesome, expect for us who dared to buy a tablet with android 2.x.x..
I'm finding myself more and more setting the 3rd party browsers user-agent to ipad (of all things) to see google pages in a nice way..

Martin.

plaminek said...

Excuse off topis but why google mobile team concentrates only to android platform ? I think that many of windows mobile users would appreciate google maps navigation like for android. robert

Alan said...

Get android apps from http://bit.ly/iEpHDR

Alex said...

Online live interactive training and regular class training for android at http://bit.ly/mr2BkQ

Nate said...

why can't there be a betterportfrom the browser version.what is withthe line by line thing, and for god sakes please add spell check. No the keyboard word recomendations are not good enough i need to be able to type without looking at every word i want to look up and see an ugly red line under all the words i wrote. So i can touch them abd get sugestions. I want itin google docs and in gmail and in the browser too if thats not to hard. Please Google i am starting to wish i had boght an ipad instead of my transformer. Help

Jacob Dixon said...

This is really some exciting news for android Tablets users, hope this will let us share our documents on google docs in a much more convenient way.

Jibran Ahmed said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

Diren Yardımlı said...

The main editing window (the core of an editor) is still the same. Come on Google...

Anonymous said...

I am working with a school system that is looking at introducing a tablet to all our students. We are looking at the Asus transformer but have concerns with google docs on the tablet. Our students are currently using google docs, but the tablet version is worthless for editing a document with ANY formatting or collaboration. This is a serious setback for us. If google can make their tablet interface as friendly as their desktop version, a lot of schools will plug kids into them. I can not think of better marketing.

Anonymous said...

You are missing out on a large market, as Mr. Like points out. We are also looking at using an Android in our classrooms but the app doesn't allow for students to edit a doc that has been shared with them. Update please!