Those who work regularly with spreadsheets and Word documents would surely have heard of Google Docs which allows users to edit their documents from within a Web browser.
In a recent announcement, Google has launched a new add-on store for Google Docs, which allow users select from an array of about 50 add-ons from external developers that bring additional capabilities to the table.
The store itself looks like the Chrome Web Store where users can download extensions to enhance the capability of the popular Chrome browser. According to Google, such a move was designed to help reduce workload and allow developers to give users more features to Google documents. Do note that the add-ons for spreadsheets will only work in the new Google Sheets and Docs; old documents will not work. Installed add-ons will also stay across all of your documents.
One of its initial launch partners include Merge by MailChimp, which lets users pull information from a spreadsheet and merged into customized emails for sending to recipients.
Another useful add-on will be the Avery Label Merge, which makes it possible to import name and addresses from any spreadsheet to a Word Document for printing. The document will automatically format to match the layout of the label pack selected by users.
Making a conference call directly inside a document is made easy by the UberConference add-on. Users who doesn’t have an account will have one automatically created; the conference call will take place right away at the right sidebar of Google Docs.
Developers will be interested to know that the add-ons are powered by Apps Script, a server-side JavaScript platform. In the interest of security, apps submitted by developers will first be analyzed by Google for use case and whitelist approval before they can be published.
With Microsoft placing a greater focus on its productivity suite of late, it’s really no wonder Google has started to take concrete steps to beef up its own offerings with the launch of its add-on store. Ultimately, existing Google App users stand to benefit from the enhanced capabilities.