Google Drive
Tired of paying Microsoft for an Office subscription, David Ludlow switched to an online rival with clever conversion tricks
Microsoft Office remains stubbornly popular, though I’d argue it’s got worse over the years. Then again, I still use it, paying an annual subscription to Office 365, so I end up giving Microsoft money no matter how much (or increasingly how little) I use it.
For my job, I find Google Drive a much better choice. I don’t have to remember to save files manually because every change is automatically saved online, and I can access files from any device, share them with other people and collaborate on documents. Google Drive is completely free (up to 15GB) with a Google Account.
The default way of using it is through a web browser at https://drive. google.com. It works much like File Explorer: you can create folders and Google files (Sheets, Docs and Slides), although you can also upload any file type. If I’ve just downloaded a file that I want to store online, I find it easiest to drag and drop it into the Google Drive browser window to upload it automatically. I also use the Google Drive app for Windows (www.snipca. com/41976). This new version creates a virtual drive that holds the contents of my entire drive, so I can drag and drop files into this and create folders.
By default, the app ‘streams’ files, which means that they’re not actually stored on my computer, but are just shortcuts. Unlike Microsoft, Google doesn’t have offline versions of its office tools, but you can activate an offline mode (for Chrome and Edge) – just click the Settings cog and tick the box in the Offline section. This lets me access files I’ve recently opened even when I’m not connected to the web.
All this is great, but sometimes I need to submit work as Word documents, which means I need to perform some clever conversion tricks in Google Drive. Once I’ve uploaded a Microsoft Office file, I right-click it and select ‘Open with’ then click the name of the related Google app: Docs for Word files, Sheets for Excel, and Slides for Powerpoint.
Google opens the file in the app that I want, but keeps it in the original Office format. That means I can make edits in Sheets that are automatically saved in Excel – all without me ever opening the latter.
Converting between file formats is easy. With an Office file open in Google Drive, I click File, then ‘Save as Google’. That creates a duplicate file in Google’s own format. That’s handy, but it’s more useful that Google can convert its own files to Office. It means I can create a Google Doc, say, and easily share it as a Word document, having never actually opened Word.
There are two ways of doing this. First, I open a file, click File, Download, then select the format I want. In our screenshot I’m converting a Google Sheet into an Excel spreadsheet. Alternatively, I can select one or more files, then rightclick them and select Download. This automatically converts all Google files into Office versions. If I select multiple files, Google Drive even bundles them into an archive for me.