28
Nov, 2018
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Tip of the Week: Useful Shortcuts for Google

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Google is well-known for being a go-to provider for Internet-related services and solutions. Your business might already be taking advantage of them, but are you using them to the best of your ability? With keyboard shortcuts and other various tips and tricks, you’ll be able to take advantage of them in previously unforeseen ways. Here are just a few of them.

Google Drive

  • X allows you to select or deselect items.
  • Shift + A allows you to select all visible items. You can use Shift + N to clear your selection of visible items.
  • Enter or O will let you open an item you have selected, while N will let you rename it.
  • Z lets you move an item to a selected folder, while S will star or unstar them.
  • You can use these shortcuts to create various items:
    • Folder – Shift + f
    • Document – Shift + t
    • Spreadsheet – Shift + s
    • Presentation – Shift + p

Google Docs

  • Ctrl + K: Insert or edit a link.
  • Alt + Enter: Open a link.
  • Alt + Shift + 5: Type with a strikethrough in your text.
  • Ctrl +: Format your text with a superscript.
  • Ctrl -: Format your text with a subscript.
  • Ctrl + Alt + F: Insert a footnote.

Google Sheets

  • Ctrl + Space: Select all contents in one column.
  • Shift + Space: Select all contents in one row.
  • Alt + Shift + 7 or Ctrl + Shift + 7: Apply a border to your selected cells.
  • Ctrl + \\: Clear formatting of your selection.
  • Ctrl + Page Up or Ctrl + Page Down: Jump to either the previous sheet or the next sheet.
  • Ctrl + ~: See the list of formulas.

Google Slides

  • Ctrl + D: Duplicate a slide or object.
  • Page Up/Page Down, Up/Down: Move from slide to slide in the filmstrip.
  • Ctrl + Alt + Shift + F: Move over to the filmstrip.
  • Ctrl + Alt + Shift + C: Move back to the canvas.
  • Alt + Shift + Left/Right Arrow: Rotate objects by one degree.
  • Alt + Left/Right Arrow: Rotate objects by fifteen degrees.

By using these shortcuts, you should be able to get more out of your Google services. There are far too many shortcuts to include here, so for the complete list, you’ll need to be in Drive, Docs, Sheets, or Slides. Once you’re in, just use Ctrl + / to pull up the list of keyboard shortcuts for the Google app you’re using.

Do you have any tips and tricks to share? Let us know in the comments.

12
Jul, 2017
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Tip of the Week: Google Offers Personal Users A Backup Solution

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Let’s say that you are a consumer looking to take advantage of data backup in an affordable way. You want a way to keep your data safe in the event of a disaster. For the average PC user, Google Drive now allows users to take backups of specific files and folders via the Backup and Sync application on their desktop PC.

Keep in mind that we are only discussing the possibility of Google Drive as an adequate backup solution for the average PC user. For businesses that want to ensure minimal downtime and maximum data recovery, your best chance is to implement an enterprise-level backup and disaster recovery solution. If you want a powerful backup solution, be sure to reach out to us and ask about your options.

In essence, Backup and Sync is the latest version of Google Drive, and allows users to back up specific files or folders on their desktop PC, and send them to Google Drive. This is particularly great for consumers who want to keep backups of their photos, videos, and other media. Google understands that this feature is primarily meant for consumer use, and encourages their G-Suite customers to wait patiently until their Drive File Stream feature is available.

In terms of availability, Backup and Sync can be implemented by users using Google Drive for PC, as well as for Mac. Just keep in mind that using Backup and Sync to store your videos and photos will likely result in your exceeding the free Drive space offered by Google.

One thing to think about as a business owner though; you shouldn’t let employees store company data directly on their workstations. Files should be stored centrally on the server where you back it up. If your workstations have a lot of sensitive company data on them, a disgruntled employee could easily set up Google Drive Backup to grab and steal all of your data. It doesn’t hurt to be a little paranoid over your data and where it’s stored.

As always, you can count on NuTech Services to inform you about the latest and greatest business technology solutions for your organization’s needs. If you need help with managing data backup and recovery, you’ll find no one better suited to the task than us. To learn more about your business’s data backup options, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

1
Jun, 2016
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Tip of the Week: How to Take a Picture of a Document With Your Android Device and Turn it Into a PDF

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Like many of Google’s productivity applications, Google Drive is available on both iOS and Android mobile devices. One of the neat features that users of Android can take advantage of is the ability to scan a PDF and store it in Drive, all by taking a picture of the document. Plus, if it has text on it which was created by a computer, you can use Drive’s search function to find it at a later date.

Granted, such a tool will have certain limitations that need to be worked around. If you use the iOS version of Google Drive, this option won’t be available to you. Plus, Drive doesn’t recognize handwriting as searchable text. Either way, Drive’s PDF scanner is useful for what it is, and it can help you keep track of signed documents within Drive.

Create PDFs for Google Drive
Follow these steps and you’ll be able to create PDFs in Drive by scanning them with your Android smartphone’s camera:

  • Open the Google Drive app.
  • Tap the red plus button in the bottom right-hand side of the screen.
  • Select the Scan option. It will look like a camera icon.
  • Take a picture of the document you want to upload.
  • Once you’ve taken the photo, you have a couple of options:n
    • Tap the checkmark icon to save it in your Drive.
    • Select the Redo icon if you want to take a better picture.
    • Tap the plus button to scan another page to the file.

    n

  • Once it’s been saved, you can use Drive’s search form to search the non-handwritten text in the document.

We’ve outlined a couple of situations where this feature might come in handy:

  • If you’re on a business trip and you need to scan and send a document, but aren’t near a computer
  • Storing receipts for later viewing and documenting
  • Any time you’re not near a printer with a scanning function

What are some other great ways that you can take advantage of this PDF converting feature? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to NuTech Services’s blog for more great technology tips and tricks.

13
Apr, 2016
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Tip of the Week: 3 Ways to Take Full Advantage of Google Drive

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Google Drive is a great way to get work done. It provides several applications that are similar in nature to Microsoft Office, like a word processor, spreadsheet software, and a presentation maker. Just like any other type of software, Drive has keyboard shortcuts and other tricks that can be leveraged for more productivity. Here are some of our favorites.

Share Larger Files That Can’t Utilize Your Email Solution
In addition to being a productivity suite, Google Drive is a solid cloud storage option. If you’re using all of these solutions for your business, chances are that you’re also using Gmail for Business as your preferred email client. Gmail has a 25MB size cap for its attachments, which might make it difficult to send and receive large documents. Thankfully, if you’re integrating Gmail with your Google Drive, you can accomplish much larger file-sharing sizes (up to 10GB). All you have to do is upload your file to Google Drive and share it out with Gmail.

Google Drive Keyboard Shortcuts
Many of the standard keyboard shortcuts work with Google Drive, but there are also several specific shortcuts that allow for exclusive functionality within Drive. Here are some of the best keyboard shortcuts available with Google Drive. Just keep in mind that these shortcuts are for Drive itself, not the apps that you might create a file with.

  • Shift + t: Create a new Google Docs document. This is great if you need a quick way to open a new document, but don’t want to go through the process of doing it manually. The document will be made in the current folder you’re viewing in Drive.
  • Shift + p: Create a new presentation with Google Slides. This works in exactly the same way as the above shortcut for Google Docs.
  • Shift + s: Create a new spreadsheet in Google Sheets. Again, this works like the above two shortcuts.
  • / (backslash): Search through your Drive folder. This is a good alternative to manually clicking on the Search form at the top of the page.
  • i: Show or hide the activity panel. This will show you the most recent activity on all documents in your current folder.
  • n: Rename your selected item. This can be handy for cutting out several clicks in the renaming process, or opening the file only to rename it.

Keep An Eye on Revision History
Google Docs and your other files in Drive allow you to view their revision history. This helps to keep users accountable for the edits and changes that they make to documents, but this also presents a unique ability to look at what has been changed from previous versions of the document. To view your revision history, click on File > See Revision History. You’ll be shown a color-coded rendition of the document which correlates to changes made, by whom, on specific dates and times. The right panel displays the various revisions, which you can restore if you so desire.

For more great tips and tricks, be sure to subscribe to NuTech Services’s blog.