In this section of the Website there are articles and videos about Google’s office suite – the document management system and corresponding applications. Most of the articles and videos will focus on the features of Drive and the applications and how to use them. Other videos will be about how Google’s applications interact with other applications, such as Microsoft Office and LibreOffice.
Google introduced its first office application when it purchased Writely in 2005 from Upstartle#, and Upstartle employees began working for Google. Writely was one of the first of its kind – a word processor that could be accessed with a Web browser. Google continued offering this application, and, in the next two years, added other applications that are part of a traditional office suite, a spreadsheet application# and presentation software#.
Currently, Google offers five applications as part of its suite – Docs (word processor), Sheets (spreadsheet), Slides (presentation), Draw (vector graphics), and Forms (form application). There are other applications that can be added to the suite. The suite runs out of Google’s document management system, Drive. From Google Drive, new documents can be created, and documents can be opened.
The applications have their own proprietary formats. For users to be able to use all of the features and tools in a document and to collaborate with others in real-time, they need to convert their documents to one of these formats. the Google applications allow for users to open documents in Microsoft formats if they are using Google Chrome. The editing tools are limited, and there is no collaboration tools.