If you have a Gmail account, you have a word processor and a spreadsheet program.
These applications are part of the Google suite of productivity tools, which are free for personal use and accessible with any Google account.
The specific applications are:
- Google Docs: A word processor that allows you to create, edit, and save text documents.
- Google Sheets: A spreadsheet program for organizing, analyzing, and manipulating data.
How to access Docs and Sheets
Your Gmail account is a Google account, which gives you immediate access to these apps. You can find them in your web browser in a few different ways:
Your Gmail account is a Google account, which gives you immediate access to these apps. You can find them in your web browser in a few different ways:
- From Gmail: While logged into your Gmail, click the “App Launcher” icon (a 3×3 grid of dots) in the top-right corner of the screen and select the Docs or Sheets icon.
- Direct URLs:
- Go to docs.google.com for the word processor.
- Visit sheets.google.com to access the spreadsheet program.
- Through Google Drive: All Docs and Sheets files are stored in Google Drive. You can access them by going to drive.google.com.
Important to know
- Cloud-based: All of your documents are automatically saved in the cloud to your Google Drive, so you can access them from any device.
- 15 GB of storage: Your Google account includes 15 gigabytes of free storage, which is shared across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos.
- Offline access: You can enable an offline mode in your Google Drive settings to work on your documents even without an internet connection.
You can upload Word and Excel documents to Google Drive using a web browser in a few simple steps. Once the file is uploaded, you can either keep it in the Microsoft Word format (.docx) or convert it to a Google Docs file.
- On your computer, go to drive.google.com and sign in to your Google account.
- In the top-left corner, click the + New button.
- From the dropdown menu, select File upload.
- A file explorer window will open. Locate the Word document on your computer and select it.
- Click Open. Your document will begin uploading to your Google Drive. You will see a progress bar in the bottom-right corner.
Convert all uploaded Word and Excel files to Google Drive to Google format for editing.
Note: I recommend this method when uploading multiple Word files, as it enables automatic conversion.
- On a computer, go to drive.google.com.
- Click the Settings gear icon in the top-right corner, then select Settings.
- In the “General” tab, find the section for “Convert uploads“.
- Check the box next to “Convert uploaded files to Google Docs editor format”.
- To finish, go back to Drive by clicking the back arrow at the upper left of the page.
After enabling this setting, any new Word or Excel documents you upload to Google Drive will be automatically converted for editing in Drive.