Google Docs is an online word processor included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs

Editors suite offered by Google, which also includes: Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google
Drawings, Google Forms, Google Sites and Google Keep. Google Docs is accessible via an internet
browser as a web-based application and is also available as a mobile app on Android and iOS and
as a desktop application on Google's ChromeOS.
Google Docs allows users to create and edit documents online while collaborating with other users
in real time. Edits are tracked by the user making the edit, with a revision history presenting
[1]
changes. An editor's position is highlighted with an editor-specific color and cursor, and a
permissions system regulates what users can do. Updates have introduced features using machine
learning, including "Explore", offering search results based on the contents of a document, and
[2]
"Action items", allowing users to assign tasks to other users.
Google Docs supports opening and saving documents in the standard OpenDocument format as
well as in Rich text format, plain Unicode text, zipped HTML, and Microsoft Word. Exporting to PDF
and EPUB formats are implemented.

History[edit]
Google Docs originated from two separate products: Writely and XL2Web. Writely was a web-based
[3]
word processor created by the software company Upstartle and launched in August 2005. It began
as an experiment by programmers Sam Schillace, Steve Newman and Claudia Carpenter, trying out
[4]
the then-new Ajax technology and the "content editable" function in browsers. On March 9, 2006,
[5][6]
Google announced that it had acquired Upstartle. In July 2009, Google dropped the beta testing
[7]
status from Google Docs. In March 2010, Google acquired DocVerse, an online document
collaboration company. DocVerse allowed multiple user online collaboration on Microsoft Word
[8]
documents, as well as other Microsoft Office formats, such as Excel and PowerPoint.
[9]
Improvements based on DocVerse were announced and deployed in April 2010. In June 2012,
[10]
Google acquired Quickoffice, a freeware proprietary productivity suite for mobile devices. In
October 2012, Google renamed the Google Drive products and Google Documents became Google
Docs. At the same time, Google Chrome App versions of Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google
[11]
Slides were released, which provided shortcuts to the service on Chrome's new tab page. In
February 2019, Google announced grammar suggestions in Docs, expanding their spell check by
[12]
using machine translation techniques to help catch tricky grammatical errors.

Platforms[edit]
Google Docs is available as a web application supported on: Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet
[13]
Explorer, Microsoft Edge and Safari web browsers. Users can access all Docs, as well as other
files, collectively through the Google Drive website. In June 2014, Google rolled out a dedicated
[14]
website homepage for Docs, that contains only files created with the service. In 2014, Google
launched a dedicated mobile app for Docs on the Android and iOS mobile operating
 [15][16][17]
systems. The mobile website for Docs was updated in 2015 with a "simpler, more uniform"
interface, and while users can read files through the mobile websites, users trying to edit will be
[18]
redirected towards the dedicated mobile app, thus preventing editing on the mobile web.

Features[edit]

Editing[edit]

Collaboration and revision history[edit]

Google Docs and the other apps in the Google Drive suite serve as a collaborative tool for
cooperative editing of documents in real time. Documents can be shared, opened, and edited by
multiple users simultaneously and users can see character-by-character changes as other
collaborators make edits. Changes are automatically saved to Google's servers, and a revision
[19]
history is automatically kept so past edits may be viewed and reverted to. An editor's current
position is represented with an editor-specific color/cursor, so if another editor happens to be viewing
that part of the document they can see edits as they occur. A sidebar chat functionality allows
collaborators to discuss edits. The revision history allows users to see the additions made to a
document, with each author distinguished by color. Only adjacent revisions can be compared, and
users cannot control how frequently revisions are saved. Files can be exported to a user's local
computer in a variety of formats (ODF, HTML, PDF, RTF, Text, Office Open XML). Files can be
[citation needed]
tagged and archived for organizational purposes.

Explore[edit]

In March 2014, Google introduced add-ons, new tools from third-party developers that add more
[20]
features to Google Docs. To view and edit documents offline on a computer, users need to be
using the Google Chrome web browser. A Chrome extension, Google Docs Offline, allows users to
[21]
enable offline support for Docs files on the Google Drive website. The Android and iOS apps
[22][23]
natively support offline editing.
In June 2014, Google introduced "Suggested edits" in Google Docs; as part of the "commenting
access" permission, participants can come up with suggestions for edits that the author can accept
[16]
or reject, in contrast to full editing ability. In October 2016, Google announced "Action items" for
Docs. If a user writes phrases such as "Ryan to follow up on the keynote script", the service will
intelligently assign that action to "Ryan". Google states this will make it easier for other collaborators
to see which person is responsible for what task. When a user visits Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, or
[24]
Slides, any files with tasks assigned to them will be highlighted with a badge.
[25][26][27]
A basic research tool was introduced in 2012. This was expanded into "Explore" in
[28][29][30]
September 2016, which has additional functionality through machine learning. In Google
Docs, Explore shows relevant Google search results based on information in the document,
simplifying information gathering. Users can also mark specific document text, press Explore and
see search results based on the marked text only.
In December 2016, Google introduced a quick citations feature to Google Docs. The quick citation
tool allows users to "insert citations as footnotes with the click of a button" on the web through the
Explore feature introduced in September. The citation feature also marked the launch of the Explore
[31][32][33]
functionalities in G Suite for Education accounts.

Files[edit]

Supported file formats[edit]

[34]
Files in the following formats can be viewed and converted to their Docs format:

● For formatted text documents: OpenDocument, Rich text format, zipped HTML, Unicode
[34]
plain text, Microsoft Word.

File limits[edit]

[35][36]
Limits to insertable file sizes, overall document length and size are listed below:

● Up to 1.02 million characters, regardless of the number of pages or font size. Document
files converted to .gdoc (Docs) format cannot be larger than 50 MB. Images inserted
cannot be larger than 50 MB, and must be in either .jpg, .png, or .gif formats.

Google Workspace[edit]
Google Docs and the Google Docs Editors suite are free of charge for use by individuals, but are
also available as part of Google's business-centered Google Workspace, enabling additional
[37]
business-focused functionality on payment of a monthly subscription.

Other functionality[edit]
A simple find and replace tool is available. Google offers an extension for the Google Chrome web
browser called Office editing for Docs, Sheets and Slides that enables users to view and edit
Microsoft Word documents on Google Chrome via the Docs app. The extension can be used for
opening Office files stored on the computer using Chrome, as well as for opening Office files
encountered on the web (in the form of email attachments, web search results, etc.) without having
[38]
to download them. The extension is installed on ChromeOS by default. Google Cloud Connect
was a plug-in for Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 that could automatically store and
synchronize any Word document to Google Docs (before the introduction of Drive) in Google Docs
or Microsoft Office formats. The online copy was automatically updated each time the Microsoft
Word document was saved. Microsoft Word documents could be edited offline and synchronized
later when online. Google Cloud Connect maintained previous Microsoft Word document versions
[39][40]
and allowed multiple users to collaborate by working on the same document at the same time.
Google Cloud Connect was discontinued in April 2013 as, according to Google, Google Drive
 [41]
achieves all of the above tasks, "with better results". In January 2022, Google announced the text
watermark feature to the word processor, allowing users to create or import watermarks to a
document. In addition to text watermarks, image watermarks can also be added to the
[42][43]
document.