Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Google Docs gets more awesome

One awesome thing about web apps is that they seem to constantly update.  And one of the best companies at doing this is Google.  They've updated Google Docs Spreadsheet app today, adding a bunch more functionality to the Charts Editor.



Two big things I noticed.  One, you can now add interaction to some of your charts.  I haven't played around with it yet, but in the video he could move through a timeline similar to a youtube video and the graph changed based on what time he was at.  The second awesome thing was embedding charts.  Obviously this wouldn't have been a huge deal in the past since you could just make a picture out of it, but with these new interactive charts, embedding them in a blog or something would be pretty sweet.

I found a sample chart that shows how useful these charts can be (If your on Google Reader you need to click on the title to go to the actual blog to see the chart).  You can check out the data at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pCQbetd-CptE1ZQeQk8LoNw



For those of you unfamiliar with Google Docs, it's essentially the internet's version of Microsoft Office.  It has features such as access from anything with an internet connection and real-time multi-user editing.  It has enough features that I would use it exclusively if it weren't for compatibility issues due to school only using Microsoft Office.

EDIT:  It appears that the chart embed isn't working right in all browsers.  It's working for me on Firefox and Safari, but it got locked up in Chrome.  I don't have time to see what the issue is, but I'm sure Google will get it figured out soon.

Also noticed that the chart doesn't show up at all in Google reader.  If you want to see the chart you have to go to the actual blog post.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm a fan, and I want an updated post please. :)