Google Drive Tips & Tricks

Asynchronous Learning Library

Flash black

Find important files or folders quickly so that you can find them later! When you star a file, it is also added to the Starred menu in the left-hand folder navigation of your drive. You can star a file by right clicking on it in Drive and selecting "Add to Starred" or by opening the file and clicking small star next to the title of the document. You can unstar files the same way to remove them from your starred section of Drive. It's helpful to clean out your starred content each school year.

If you like visual cues, you can organize your Google Drive folders by color. Right click a folder in Drive and then select "Change Color." If you are changing the color of a folder that is shared with others, they will not see your color selection and can choose their own color within their own Drive.

Make sure that you have your documents correctly shared before sending other people the link. Otherwise, when the recipient tries to open it, they need to email you an access request which can be frustrating. Anyone with the Link- Makes a link available to the public and can even be found by search engines. Max 200 people can view a public document at any one time. Jeffco Public Schools&nbsp;- Anyone with an @jeffcoschools.us account, who also has the link can either access or edit, depending on the drop-down menu selection appearing just underneath these three options. Ideal for sharing somewhat private info with people you trust who are in district. Restricted- Only people invited via email can either view or edit the document, depending on the drop-down setting selected. You can also set the sharing permissions for folders, which adjusts the sharing for each document inside.

Radial orange

Files in 2 Places at Once

You can make a file appear in more than one folder by using shortcuts. This is different than making a copy and placing a copy in a different folder, as the shortcut traces back to the original file. This means you will always have the most recent version of the file at your fingertips. These can be used in Drive or Shared Drives. Anybody with access to the folder can see the shortcut. However, if they don't have access to the actual file, they won't be able to open the shortcut. To make a shortcut right-click the file and select Add Shortcut to Drive.

Use Explore in Google Files

Make your life more efficient in Docs, Sheets and Slides with the Explore button. You will find a star shaped button at the bottom of each of these Apps that will open a right-hand pane while you are in the program. The options available to you depend up on the program you are using and the content in your file. Sheets: highlight your data and Explore will offer you functions, formatting, data analysis and more! Slides: Explore in slides will offer suggestions to make your slides more visually appealing. Docs: Explore in Docs allows you to do manual searches. You can also cite your source.

Access your Calendar and Keep in Google Files

You can quickly access your Calendar and your Google Keep while you are in the middle of working on a Google file. This is handy so that you don't have to open multiple tabs in your browser. Simply click on the Calendar, Keep or Task icon in the right-hand menu of your screen in Docs, Sheets or Slides. You can also drag and drop content from your Google Keep directly into your Docs, as well!

The priority page allows you to access the files you need through a combination of suggestion and work spaces. The prioritized files are the documents that Google thinks are most relevant to you. For example, Google will let you know if Forms have new submissions and if Docs have new comments. It will also pull up files that you open regularly at that time of the day or week. On each document, you can take action without having to navigate through folders to get to the document.

Make it Visual with Emojis

You can add an emoji to the title of a Google Drive folder to make them easier to find. Simply copy the emoji from a tool like <a href="https://emojikeyboard.io/">Emoji Keyboard</a> and paste it into the title of your folder. Drive will categorize the emoji as coming before A if you have your drive sorted in alphabetical order. Emojis can also be placed in titles of Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, too!

Make it Visual with Numbers

Many people choose to organize their Drive alphabetically. However, sometimes the most used folders do not start with A. Bypass the alphabetizing system by placing a number at the beginning of your folder. 01, 02, 03 will appear first in Drive before your standard alphabetized folders.

Professional Development Credit

If you would like to earn 1 hour of professional development credit for completing this eBook, please fill out this <a href="https://forms.gle/5j3AKG2B1fEs5qsm9">Google Form</a>. The title of this eBook is Google Drive Tips &amp; Tricks. A 1-hour certificate will be emailed to you upon completion.

Communicate while you Collaborate

Google Drive shows your fellow document collaborators in the upper-right corner. You can leave in-line comments or questions for specific people as you work, but you can also send them an instant message. Click the chat bubble next to the collaborator chatheads and type your message. This is not a private message, however. Everyone else in the doc can see your discussion, too.

<a href="bookcreator://page/z4K20HcLREC_DOmoPQNscw">Find it</a> <a href="bookcreator://page/HK0wNFfzQPe7zQdiuirhsQ">Make it Visual</a> <a href="bookcreator://page/ch86YKzoSWerCmz1CZtInw">Managing Files</a> <a href="bookcreator://page/hAi9QYAPTF2zjboe7IffUw">App Tips</a>

Google Drive Tips and Tricks

Revert to a Version or See Version History

When you are in a Google File (Docs, Sheets, Slides etc.) you can click on File &gt; Version History &gt; See Version History. Here you can name versions, see who made which edits, and restore the document to an older version, if necessary. Note: you must be an editor of the file in order to use version history.

Find all the Drive Shortcuts

In Google Drive press Ctrl and / on a PC or Command and / on a Mac. Once you do, you will see a list of shortcuts that are relevant to the part of Drive that you are in.

Use Editing and Other Modes

Editing The standard editing mode. Not much to see here. Viewing If you're handing in something important and don't want to accidentally hit the keyboard and&nbsp;mess up the content, this one's worth using. Suggesting This is an interesting one. With Suggesting mode selected, each edit you make to the document will strike-through deleted or edited copy, underlining new copy for editors to either accept or reject. Edits are color-coded by user so you can see who suggested what at a glance. It's a godsend for collaboration.

Convert Microsoft Files &amp; PDFs to Google

Upload a Word file or PDF to Drive by dragging it from your desktop into the correct folder in Google Drive. You can also click the +New button in Drive and then select "File Upload." Then, in Drive, right-click your Microsoft file and choose "Open With" and choose the appropriate Google Match for your file (ex: Word to Docs, PowerPoint to Slides). Once you open the file you will have all the Google features you know and love.

Keep Multiple Versions of a File

If you need to keep multiple versions of a file, you can! From Drive right click on the file and click "Manage Versions." You can then upload and save a new version of the same file. Versions will be deleted after 30 days unless you manually select "Keep Forever."

Do you have trouble remembering where everything lives in Drive or finding the exact document you need when you search? Use the advanced search features to search by a specific type of file (Slide, Sheet, video) or a specific owner (you or a teammate). You can also search by people it's shared with, words in the title, and date modified.

Google will suggest work that it thinks is a part of the same project or tasks. You can easily add these files to workspaces so that you can collect content and access it quickly and easily. To add a file to a workspace, enter into your drive and right-click the file and select Add to Workspace. There is a limit of 25 files per workspace.

Name

Safari may block some audio or video from playing automatically and ‘read to me’ will skip these. You can configure this in Safari’s preferences.