Google tiene tantas aplicaciones que parecen no tener fin: el propio buscador, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, Google Plus, Google Fotos, o su servicio de alojamiento de archivos en la nube con Google Drive.
Dentro de este último, es precisamente donde encontramos una estupenda suite online con varias herramientas que nos permiten redactar textos, crear presentaciones, formularios y, cómo no, la confección de hojas de cálculo.
Ya solo el simple hecho de emular prácticamente todas las funciones de la mítica suite de Microsoft es de por sí un gran logro. Pero si encima permite la edición compartida, almacenamiento en la nube o escritura mediante comando de voz, directamente es pasarse el juego.
Hoy vamos a compartir con vosotros una serie de trucos y secretos para que podáis aprovechar al máximo todo lo que tiene que ofreceros Google Sheets. Quedaos con nosotros porque esto os interesa. ¡Empezamos!
Escribe mediante comando de voz
Suena a ciencia ficción, pero así es. Desde Google Sheets (al igual que con Google Docs) podremos dictarle a al ordenador para que escriba solo.
To do this, simply go to Tools> Voice typing . Immediately a microphone will be enabled on the left margin of our screen that we must press to activate it. That is when you can start dictating the content, and once you are done, click on the microphone again.
Search for images online (and insert them into a cell)
One of the advantages of being an online office suite and of Google is that we can insert images searched directly from the Internet. With the document open, it will be as easy as accessing the menu Insert> Image> Image in Cell or Image in Cell. A new window will open where we can choose the origin of that image: Drive, URL, Google Photos or the one that interests us in this case, Google image search.
From there, we simply write the name of what we want to add an image to to our spreadsheet, for example, “Barcelona”. The photo selection interface is quite similar to the one found in Google images search results .
Another more direct option is by using the command = image ("image url") to insert images from any website.
Includes special characters
To include special characters in a Google Sheets text, we must go to Insert> Special characters. A huge library of characters will then open that we can add wherever we want . In fact, we can perform a search by sections or pull the search engine.
Use full screen mode
If we are not used to working from a web browser window, either because it distracts us from our functions, or because we are not comfortable with that interface. Whatever your case, we can always choose to work in full screen and have the toolbars or even the Windows start bar disappear.
To do this, we must go to the menu View> Full Screen . In this way we can adapt the work screen to view only the cells and forget about everything else. And for the most demanding, we can also combine it with the F11 key to activate the full screen of the browser, and eliminate the tabs and the search bar.
Extends a formula to a whole range of cells
We usually drag a formula across a range of cells where we want that formula to apply. The bad thing is that if we make any changes to it, we will have to drag it again through all the cells .
For this reason, it is better to use ArrayFormula , so that we can define from a single cell the formula that we want to be applied to a certain set of cells.
Share your spreadsheet
Without a doubt, one of the most outstanding functions of the Google Drive work programs. Being based on the cloud, Google Drive allows us the possibility of using files collaboratively . In this way, we can create a work group with several users who can also edit the same document.
We just have to click on the upper right button that says "Share" and then add the emails of those people with whom we want to share the document. These colleagues will receive a notification by email that they will have to accept to start editing the file directly .
Chat with another user
As a consequence of the previous point, we can also chat with the users who are part of our work team since they have a Gmail account. We just have to go to the chat window enabled on the right margin to communicate with them. Not only that, but we will also see what they are editing thanks to some colored boxes indicating the name of the email of the user in question.
Save the file in Office format
Of course, Google Drive is perfectly compatible with the formats of Microsoft's office suite . But, just in case, it is always advisable to export our Google Sheets files in .XLSX format. We can do it if we go to the File menu> Download as> Microsoft Excel.
Translation into other languages
Surely this will take many of you by surprise, but the truth is that you can use the Google Translate function to translate texts into several languages from Google Sheets quickly and comfortably. You just have to specify the content to be translated, the source language and the language to which we want to translate it, using the following formula: = GOOGLETRANSLATE (“how are you?”; “Es”; “en”).
Some of these features have surely caught you by surprise. Of course, there are still many more to describe. Tell us in the comments what more tricks you know.