If you spend a lot of time in Google Docs, Slides, or Drawings, the new features announced today by Google will make your work creating and editing text a lot quicker and easier.
Before today, to add a bulleted or numbered list, you needed to select the toolbar or the menu settings. Now you can easily create bulleted or numbered lists using bullet-friendly characters at the beginning of a line.
When you type an asterisk (*) or a hyphen (-) followed by spacebar, it will automatically start a bulleted list. When you type a number followed by a period and spacebar, it will automatically start a numbered list.
The automated lists feature is turned on by default. You can disable it by going to Tools > Preferences and disabling Automatically detect lists.
Another new feature from Google allows you to select backspace immediately to undo any autocorrection. (If you’re not familiar with the default autocorrection patterns, look at Tools > Preferences. For example, (c) is autoconverted to the copyright symbol ‘©’.)
With the new feature, selecting backspace immediately after typing (c) will change it back to ‘(c)’.
Checking Out the New Features
I tested out the new features in Google Docs on my desktop and Chromebook earlier today, and found them easy to use. What a time savings! I also liked that the numbered list feature allows you start your numbered list with any random number.
Unfortunately, the new list feature shortcuts don’t work on my Android tablet. A few users commented on the announcement post that mobile isn’t working for them. It’s not clear to me whether the feature is available on mobile, or if it just hasn’t been rolled out to mobile yet.
Other users commented that the new features aren’t working for them, though they don’t indicate if they tested on the desktop or mobile. As with previous Google updates, it may take a few days before the new features are rolled out to all users.
Will you use the shortcut features for lists? Or will you use the toolbar or menu settings? Share your thoughts in the comments
