Google Docs for business

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Google Docs is more than a simple document processing/word processing tool. It’s more of a productivity suite for businesses. Google Docs has evolved a long way from the simple documenting features. You may argue that Google Docs is majorly used by freelancers, schools, colleges like individual contributors. But, trust me we came a long way from there. Now, one can make use of ultimate powerful features that can power their entire business documenting needs right from the ground up. Let’s see what are all the different ways is Google Docs for Business is useful.

Google Docs for business
Google Docs for business

Why is Google Docs best suited for business?

For decades, businesses were mostly running under Microsoft’s word-processing software. Of course, it’s quite a handy tool with a super simple interface. What’s your take on tools for businesses? You might have noticed businesses especially startups are highly dependant on productivity tools. Why is it so? 

Google Docs For Business use

Guessed it, right? They play a crucial role in their operations. Most small businesses or startups operate in a highly competitive and challenging environment. Thus they are in need to be ahead of their competitors in terms of employee satisfaction, productivity, time, and revenue.

Most importantly their primary aim would be reducing the time and money spent on various resources. Not limited to those, many other factors also can correlate their success. Thus any successful CEO, leaders, and entrepreneurs would strive to make use of productivity tools to the most.

But, think of any traditional offline installation software like MSWord, PowerPoint, or Excel. No one can deny they are best suited for personal usage. But, when it comes to business it comes with lots of limitations.

Say, a number of people work on a single document, you would be sharing those and repeatedly editing those with the utmost difficulty. And, imagine your pen drive with an important document got lost on the day of the presentation.

Oh, God! Guess, you might have faced this commonly in your school/college works. But, those can be compromised. What about businesses? A big no, right? It’s time and money at the end of the day.

This makes online suite like Google Docs for Business outscores the rest. 

Challenges in using offline tools for business instead of using Google Docs for Business:

As said before, there can be many challenges in using traditional offline software suites like Microsoft Word. Let’s see what are some key challenges one would face when using those for business needs below,

  • Limited collaboration – Only one can work at a time. MS word kind of tools is best suited for individual usages. They are installed in individual systems, and the only way to share those documents is via Email or any other communication software. Thus more than one person cannot work on such documents at a time, and changes can be extremely difficult to track.
  • Installation and upgrade issues – It demands installation knowledge and takes considerable space on your disk. 
  • Version conflicts and document formats – There can be several version conflicts and trouble in opening files of not supported formats. Say, a colleague of you shares a document in MSWord 2007 format and you are using the latest version of the software. When you try to open it there you might have some trouble using it. Also, you may face missing font and other formatting styles in certain cases. 
  • Security – Can be highly vulnerable to viruses and malware as they are shared across multiple devices, multiple times. 
  • Lack of backward compatibility – The older versions use .doc extension and later ones come with .docx extension. Thus it becomes highly challenging in accessing earlier version files back and forth. 
  • Expensive – Unlike Google Docs, you can’t just use them without any license for the business use cases. Thus buying the office suite on your own can be quite expensive. 
  • File size – The file size can be quite large. A lot of meta-information gets saved along with such files usually that bloats its size to a great extend. When it comes to businesses, you may create hundreds and hundreds of files for your needs. Thus it too hefty in such cases.
  • Changes for losing your works –  Imagine spending hours typing a long document, and forgot to save. So bad, right? It’s usual to get lost. That’s never a thing with Google Docs. 

In addition, there can be few other limitations when it comes to revision history, managing access, and third-party add-ons. 

How it’s easy to shift to Google Docs for Business?

It’s no more a surprise that millions of people are adopting Google Docs for Business. What makes it the most sought after tool to look for is its learning curve. One can easily adapt to its interfaces, and it would be good to go in minutes. 

Some extraordinary benefits come baked with Google Docs for Business which supports easier adaption are, 

  • Free – Using Google Docs for Business purpose is completely free. Why would you pay for an office suite when you are good to go with a completely free suite with amazing functionalities. It’s more enough to get started with a small or medium-sized business. 
  • Much familiar interface – Are you someone planning to use Google Docs for the first time? You’ll be surprised to see that is almost similar to other word processors software you would have used before. Thus extremely easy to learn. You can learn how to use Google Docs for business in minutes.  
  • Storage space – Google offers you 15 GB of free storage exclusively which makes it ideal to use Google Docs for business. It’s more enough for basic business needs. It includes other suites such as Gmail, Drive, etc. But, 15 GB is really huge space and you would never use it fully that sooner.
  • Collaboration and autosaving – Using Google Docs for Business ensure easy collaboration among team members. No worries about saving, Google Docs supports automatic saving. 
  • Add-ons – Comes in-built with awesome and intelligent features. You can add more capabilities with a wide range of custom add-ons when using Google Docs for business.
  • Complete cloud storage – Fully cloud (Google’s secure and powerful servers). You can access it anywhere, anytime, and device of your choice, which makes it easy to use Google Docs for business.
  • Instant backup – In the case of Microsoft office environments you are solely responsible for backing up your own files. No external virus/malware could easily penetrate the system. Google stands out in terms of security and takes care of it completely.
  • A wide range of file types – Google Docs supports almost any file type you would work within the work environment.  It offers a wide variety of file formats like Doc, Docx, ppt, Xls, xlsx, etc. Such a list of file choices gives you the ability to work across several platforms without any issues.
  • Cross-browser compatibility – No matter what kind of browser you are using, it works out of the box like magic. Any device laptops, PCs, tablets, smartphones – all you need is a web browser to access your docs.
  • Realtime chat – Collaborate online in real-time and instant chat with other collaborators via comments/notes. You can see edits as others type which is super cool. 
  • Wide range of templates to use Google Docs for Business.
  • Voice typing support – Although it’s not used widely, it supports might be handy for a few and good that Google offers us to use Google Docs for Business.
  • Offline mode – No matter how strong your connectivity is. You can easily enable offline mode in Google Docs and access all your documents completely offline just like Microsoft office software. 
  • Excellent Revision history support – You can view your documents’ revision history and roll back to any version at times of need. It makes Google Docs very ideal to use Google Docs for business.
  • Easy translate – Your clients may be of different geography and thus you might be in need to present the same information in their regional language. It’s super simple with Google Docs using for Business. Google Docs comes in support for a wide number of languages to translate in. 
  • Controlled access – Most importantly in business you might be in need to restrict access to various users at different levels. Google Docs lets you personalize access and restrict users as per your choice easier to use Google Docs for Business. It’s much powerful than you imagine. 
  • Smart suggestions to help you prioritize your works and manage words. 
  • Export – Google Docs for Business requires easy export of your work in .pdf, .odt, .rtf, .html,.txt, or .docx format which is already in Google Docs.

Google Docs For Small Business

For a small business or for a start-up, it’s really a great benefit to use a free word processor instead of paying a good amount for Microsoft word.

Google Docs For Business Free

A small business can use Google Docs for the purpose of creating, editing documents, sharing the documents with others, etc with absolutely free of cost and can able to save a good amount. Small businesses should take the advantage of this free platform.

The only thing the small business needs here is a web browser and internet connection to use Google docs.

Key Capabilities Of Google Docs

With free of cost, Google docs provide you a lot of features that includes word counter, spell checking, voice-typing. You can easily able to insert tables, images, charts, checkboxes, text boxes, etc.

Another great advantage with Google Docs is since it is cloud-based, the documents you create or modify are getting save automatically to the cloud. No need to download or save the documents to your local computer path but you have the option to save the documents to your local computer as well.

No Chance To Loose Your Work

No need to worry to save your work if by chance you have missed it. Google Docs is providing you the opportunity to update or create the document and leave, it will save the modification in the cloud automatically.

Another important point is, if you by chance don’t like the current version of your document, you can easily restore it to the previous version in Google Docs.

Easy Collaboration With Remote Employees

Another best feature with Google Docs is when you are working with your remote employees, you can share the same document that you are working on with the remote employees and teammates. You all can work together with the same document.

Even, it provides you different color codes that you can apply for each person to identify the individual changes and it also shows you the last updated time.

Excellent Mobile App

Not only web, Google Docs also allows you with a Google Doc mobile app that you can easily install on your android or iPhone mobile devices and work on your documents.

Google Docs Login

It’s quite easy to login to Google Docs using the below steps

How to Sign in to Google Docs

  1. Go to https://docs.google.com/ and hit enter from your keyboard.
  2. Then it will redirect you to the login page. Enter your Google account Email Address or Phone number and If you don’t have a google account till now, you can click on the Create account link to create a new google account and Finally, click on the Next button as highlighted below.
Google Docs Login

3. Then enter the password for your Google account and click on the Next button.

How to Sign Google Docs

4. Now you will be redirected to Google Docs with successfully log in. Click on the Blank (+) icon to create an empty google document.

How to Sign in to Google Docs

Google Docs For Windows 10

You can find a complete tutorial to Download Google Docs For Windows 10.

You may like the following Google docs tutorials:

Thus it’s proven Google Docs is no more a personal document tool. It came a long way through and can completely fit your business needs if used properly. Google suite for business is one of the most sought after office suite and already have a huge fan base. Give a try using Google Docs for Business and you’ll be absolutely amazed by its flexibility.