G Suite is going through some big changes today, with Google changing the service's name to Google Workspace. It appears that this change is being made to give a deeper sense of integration among Google's various productivity apps, and to put it in a better position to challenge Microsoft Office. With more people working from home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the change is coming at a good time to.
Google Drive is down, Google Docs is down, and a couple of other services from Google are down at the moment, too. Google's own Service Outage reports suggest that many users aren't able to properly access Google Sheets or Google Slides, either. The current status of the Google Classroom system is also experiencing a Service Disruption here on January 27, 2020.
Google Docs is finally getting a feature that is already available in just about every other word processing application ever: real-time word counts. Yes, Google Docs already features a word count tool; it requires users to manually click through the menu every time they want to see it, however. The new addition brings the word counter to the main editor screen, enabling users to see it at a glance.
Dropbox is making it easier for its users to work in the cloud by integrating Google's office web apps with its cloud service. Under the new support, users who are signed into a Google G Suite account can directly access Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets within Dropbox, enabling them to save content, search files, manage access, and more.
Back in July, Google starting rolling out a grammar checker for Google Docs. This was no simple grammar checker Google had been cooking up, but rather one that was powered by machine learning. It's an impressive tool that tries to find the nuance in complicated grammar rules, but the problem is that the tool's initial launch was pretty limited in scope, as it was at first only available to users in G Suite's early adopter program.
G Suite and Google Drive offer a lot of handy tools to its enterprise customers, but there's one rather glaring issue with them: in order to collaborate on Docs, Sheets, and Slides with team members or clients, everyone needs to have a Google account. Google itself recognizes that it can be a "significant barrier for collaboration" when the person you're trying to work with doesn't have a Google account, so today the company is changing the rules.
Google is utilizing artificial intelligence to help its Google Docs users improve their grammar. The company recently detailed a new feature called Grammar Suggestions, which offers ways to improve or correct any grammar issues it finds within a document. According to Google, its artificial intelligence is able to spot multiple types of grammar issues ranging from big to small.
![Google Docs is down: Here’s when it’ll be back [Update: It’s back!]](https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wegwewegfewq-980x620.jpg)
Google Docs was knocked out earlier today for some users in multiple regions around the world. This down time was classified by Google as a mid-level issue - a Service Disruption - rather than a full Service Outage. At the time this article is set to be published, most users will be well on their way back to full service, all around the world.
The Google Docs family - that is, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides - is getting a pretty significant update today. Much of this update is focused on streamlining collaboration between you and your co-workers, especially in documents that are open to multiple editors. There are also some bonuses for folks who like to make use of Google Docs' templates and those who need to work across multiple Google services quickly.
Some Google Docs users were hit with a very convincing, very real-looking phishing email today that some, unfortunately, fell for. The email claimed that someone had shared a document with the Google user, who would then click on the link and be taken to a real Google page to select their Gmail account. Choosing the account, though, led to a fishy page that requested access to the user's account, and it only got worse from there.
Google has always had two "word processing" apps, Google Keep for notes, snippets, images and whatnot, and Google Docs for more extensive and sophisticated documents. Each have its own strengths and purpose but they aren't so unrelated to each other. Fortunately, Google has finally seen that connection as well and is enabling a seamless flow from one app to the next. Now you can easily copy your Keep notes into Docs and create new Keep notes right from inside Docs.
For the longest time, there have been two titan when it comes to office productivity software: the ever enduring Microsoft Office suite, and the more recent web-based Google Docs. But there soon could be a new challenger in the form of Amazon, as sources have indicated the company is planning to beef up its Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform with a productivity suite that will attempt to lure enterprise customers away from Microsoft and Google.