How to use Google Docs - Beginners Tutorial

are you new to Google Docs or maybe you would like  to learn more about some of its features to create   professionall looking documents well by the end of  this tutorial on how to use Google Docs I want to   make sure you feel confident in creating managing  and sharing all of your Google Documents   hi I'm Jamie and welcome to teachers Tech in this  how to use Google Docs for a beginners tutorial   I'm going to start right from the basics but if  you already know the basics and are looking for   something specific Take a Look Down Below in the  description and you're going to find all the time   stamps for this video you can go ahead and click  on them and jump to that part of the video saving   yourself some time let's get started to access  Google Docs you need to make sure you have a

Google account if you already have one make sure  you go ahead and get signed in if you don't have   one right when you click the sign in you can  go ahead and create account I'm going to go   ahead get signed into mine now let's talk about  a few ways to create your Google Docs and keep   them organized right away when you're creating  them if you're logged in if you go up to the top   to the Google apps this waffle looking thing you  can open your Google Docs from right here if you   don't see this here you can drag this around maybe  it's a little down below here but you can drag it   to where you would like if I go ahead and click  on this it will bring me to the Google Docs page   where I can create a blank document or access any  of the templates that they have which are great   for saving a lot of time when they're already  set up you just have to add what words you want   in there you're also going to see the recent  documents this way as well if I go to the left   here the main menu I can jump around from docs  sheets slides and forms I'm going to have videos   on all of these too as well and I can access  Google Drive I can also go back up to the waffle   up here and access Google drive this way it'll  get me to the same place how I like to start my   Google docs to keep things organized and I'm just  in my drive here I go ahead and create folders so   I can go new here or new here if I create a folder  and I call this demo and in once this is created   I can go in inside this folder and I can create  my Google Docs in here I could create new Google   Docs or I can rightclick Google Docs and you can  see also I can go from blank template or blank   document or template or just click here and it's  going to open this up so if I give this a name   up here and this is where you're going to title  title it and I'm just going to call this demo   it's save to drive if I go back to my Google Drive  now it's saved in here so I'm helping my file stay   organized in side folders already the last way  that I want to show you a quick way to start a   new document and if I go to a new tab you can just  go up to the uh bar up here and start typing doc.    new if you're logged in it's going to create a new  document just like that so these are some ways you   can get started with creating a blank document  I've created another folder here I want to show   you a few other ways you can stay organized with  Google Docs let's go ahead and open up this this   demo doc that we already created and I want you to  take a look at the top of the screen I showed you   how we name this but we have some options to Star  and as soon as I star this what I can do now is if   I go over to my Google Drive notice that we have  start and now since I started that's going to show   up here so if you have important documents just  quickly add a star to it when you click it will   be all lined up here all the starred ones another  way you can stay organized is if I click this   right here move I can go ahead and move this to  different places so if I click on my drive I can   already see that there's a folder here called  practice so if it was uh if you're digging   through your drive you could just uh put it into  the general drive or if I double click it brings   me to practice here but if I go into practice I  can click move and now it just moved from demo   to practice so if I go back to Google Drive here  and I'm going to go uh to my drive it was in demo   before but if I go to practice you're going  to see it here and it's also start I'm going   to go ahead and open up this demo document that  I've already created and talk about some of the   different view options notice I have a ruler  across the top and I like having my ruler on   and we'll get into some things we can do with that  later but if I go to view if you don't want it or   you it's not showing just click it and you'll  notice how it disappears or reappears we have   a few other layouts here uh we can turn on the  show equation bar so if you're inserting equation   and we also have the nonprinting characters which  shows me if I hit enter a few times these don't   show up in print but it will show me where there's  different breaks and different things uh inside

the document so you can quickly turn those on or  off we also have different modes that we can work   in so we can work in editing and that's what I'll  be working in today suggesting your edits just   become suggestions you're not really editing  you're just making suggestions on it and then   there's the viewing read or final print document  you can also get to this over here in uh where   you can just simply click on any of these let's go  ahead and add some text we can do some formatting

with so when we go ahead and select any of this  just like many other word processors Google Docs   work similar I can go and highlight and drag my  mouse over and pick a word and then if I wanted   to let's say change the font I can quickly do that  notice if you want more font selection you can go   to more fonts up here and take a look through this  way as well I have this highlighted I can increase   the size now there's the other quick formats we  can do but when we're selecting if I click once   notice that it's inside Marvel double click will  select Marvel the word triple click will select   the line so if I wanted superheroes doubleclick  now I can go say let's say go and italicize   underline and change the color of the font so if  I wanted it this orange we can make those quick   changes highlighting so if I was going to  highlight this word you can see the difference   between changing the font or highlighting you  can also Center very quickly if I wanted to   Center this line I could go and Center a line up  top here you can notice that I could write a line   also or put it back to where it was before now if  you want to quickly uh clear the formatting on any   of this if I go ahead and select this line we have  this up top clear formatting you're also going to   notice under format clear format in it's the same  thing see the same icon is there or you could use   the shortcut control and backslash together so  I'm going to click on this and notice that the   line gets cleared of all that formatting let's  say you want to add a list like a bullet list

or a number list or even a check mark list I want  to in this example make a list of the different   superhero abilities and let's say this is my top  level and I want to have it numbered one and then   have different bullets underneath so what I can do  is if I go up to this and just hover over where it   says numbered list I can click on this if I change  my mind and wanted it to be a bullet I can have it   even have it be a checklist  where people can go through and check it off   so depending on what type of list you want I want  this to be a numbered list here and I'm going to   have other points underneath each one so if I go  here and hit enter it becomes a number two well I   don't want it to be a number two I want this to be  a subheading or sub information of this top on the   abilities so what I can do is go increase indent  and notice it becomes an A and if I want it to be   a bullet instead I can go ahead and click on this  uh notice you get some different options and if   you click on them so I can paste in my information  this is going to be the super strength ability and   when I hit enter now it stays in the same uh with  the same indent so I can go and add another one   uh in here by pasting it in so I have flight and  I can continue on but let's say I want to get to   a new top heading of this if I go up to decrease  indent it pushes it back to number two and then   I can put another uh that top level heading in  it will go to number three but this is where I   increase my indent and I can add the information  I want to underneath and at any time I can go back   and change these if I wanted these to be a number  you can see how it does the A's if I drop down I   have some different options as well so if I click  on it notice that it's using the brackets so uh   take a look at all the different ways that you  can add the bullets or the numbered list or even   the check mark list line spacing is something that  you can adjust prior or even after so here's some

text I've added as long as I'm clicked into this  paragraph somewhere I can go up to the quick line   spacing button here choose it and you can see if  I wanted this to be double this entire paragraph   becomes double now I could set that even prior to  typing if I want to click double and then as I go   through it will have double spacing but you can  quickly adjust this to anywhere you want you can   even do custom spacing where you can input the  information so just some quick ways to make all   these different adjustments even before you start  or even after I went through and deleted the   information I have in this document because I  want to set up a new document that will put a

whole paper in and we'll go through and format  it with headings and adding a table of contents   but before we do anything it's good to make sure  you have your page setup if I go to the file and   go to page setup here this is where you can say  do you want this in portrait or do you want this   in landscape uh do you want a different paper  size I'm keeping it an half by 11 but maybe you   want it on legal you can make these changes to  match what you need we do have a page color here   I'm leaving this as white and we can also set our  margins through here again I'm not changing any of   this I just want to make sure you know that this  is here notice that we have uh this right here   apply to this tab I'm going to talk about tabs  in a moment but I'll just be mainly working with   the one tap here today so I'm going to go and hit  okay and we're ready to start with our information   and I'm just going to plunk it in I've inserted  some text here that we are going to go through

and format it with different headings the first  thing I want to point out is let's say if you   did want to change it to double spacing right now  it's all single space we can select everything in   a hurry if you use the shortcut contrl a that will  select everything in the document then you could   go up to uh line spacing and do let's say double  and you can see how everything changes everything   was selected through there so just that shortcut  can save you a lot of time rather than trying to   select everything by the mouse so the first thing  that I want to show is uh how to use the different   styles to add headings and titles so a lot of  people do this they'll go through and if this   is their title they'll bold it and they'll make  this larger and they'll go through to each one   the introduction maybe each of these headings and  they'll put numbers and different things there's   a better way to do this now I'm going to go up  to the where it says Norm text here I'm going to   be clicking on the line I don't need to uh select  select it I can just be on the line if I drop down   here and if I know this is the title I can click  on title or apply title just like this and notice   that um this becomes doubled space too so if you  didn't want that you can go through uh and if I   wanted this back to be single space I could do it  just like that but what's let's say if you don't   want uh to have this formatting how do you get  your own format when you click on these I can   undo this last step so or I could hit the shortcut  contrl Z and get used to um you know to using the   shortcuts will save you a lot of time let's say  if I this is where I've changed it and I'm going   to just up my font size a little bit more and I'm  am going to change it to just my single spacing   so let's say I want this to be 16 a 16 font for  the heading and I could change it to whatever I   want I could even change the color to this and I  will change the color so I can demo it so let's   say we want this red now if I want this to be uh  the title every time what I can do is if I go to   title I can update Title to match so when I click  this notice now when I go to title it becomes that   one so if I go through to any of these and click  on title that's now that's the style that I can   apply that I created I'm going to go contrl Z cuz  I want that to be the title and I'm just going   to leave this for demo purposes as the red but  what do I want to be maybe the second one uh so a   lot of times I'll format what I want so if this is  going to be let's say slightly larger here we'll   keep this at 13 but just a normal color with black  I could go and this time I'm going to go to let's   say heading one and I'll apply update heading one  match so now this abstract could be a heading one   or is it going to be this introduction one so  I it's my choice what I depend on what I what   I want to do there but let's say the introduction  is going to be a heading one as well and also Iron   Man is going to be a heading one so I can click  on all these get my heading one and now when I   get down to this is going to be a subheading to  this one I can go ahead and click in here and go   to heading to but I want to pick what I want  first so maybe this becomes just bolded like   this and I'm going to go to heading two and update  so now I have my heading two I can go through on   these parts and go to my heading two this is going  to be heading two and I want to point out again   the short cuts here so contrl alt 2 is a lot a  faster way to do this when I get back to this   one where it says Captain America here I can drop  down and this time I'd pick Control Alt one or   click here and notice on the slide as I go through  and do this I'm getting all these are links   that will jump me to different parts of the paper  so if I click on this first one the title it   brings me back to the title but then I can quickly  go to where I left off I'm going to go through   this document now and just finish off with those  three different types of headings or two different   headings that I have uh and then we'll continue  from there to add our table of contents I've added

all my headings and heading twos to this you can  see how easy it is to navigate navate just jumping   around to any part through the side if you have  a long paper this really helps the other thing   I want to point out notice this is all under tab  one this is a new feature in Google Docs I can add   new tabs so this kind of works like just like in  Google Sheets or spreadsheets where you can have   multiple tabs at the bottom if I add a tab this is  all blank here I can create a brand new document   within this document so I could go back to tab one  and have this information I'm working on here but   then have another one uh maybe I'm putting all my  research under this one document based on this   so then I can rename these tabs as well so if I  just click rename it's going to pull the title   the title is too long uh it can only be so many  characters you can see it can only be 50 so what   I can do uh with this is just to go and uh Delete  uh part of this so if I was just going to call   this uh the super ended up superheroes here and  this will work fine the tab two I can name what   I want I can also go ahead and just delete this  tab as well I just wanted to point those tabs out   now how do we add a table of contents I want to  right after the abstract

on the first page I'm going to go and put a page  break in I'm going to click on this introduction   here and I'm going to go insert break page break  and what you'll notice it pushes the this to the   next page introduction is at the top of the page  and I have this space right here I want to insert

my table of contents at this part here so to do  this since I have all the different headings in   if I go to insert and I look at the very bottom  table of contents is right here and I have some   different formats I could go plain text dotted  or even links within it I could click on it I'm   going to go with a dotted so as soon as I click  it adds it with the page numbers right into   it so this saves people a lot of time and it's an  old overlooked feature and the importance of using   these different headings what happens though  if the pages change so if I go here let's say   we want to separate our different pages I want  Captain America to be on a different page here   if I go and insert a page break and notice that  we can use the shortcut contrl enter as well uh   I'll go and do it right here on black panther I'll  hit control enter and that becomes a much quicker   way so I'll go down to the last one let's say the  comparative analysis I want there I'll go control   enter and we have now we have a lot more pages if  I go up to the very top and I'll click on the the   very top the abstract one these haven't updated  I know I have more pages if I click on anywhere   in here I have this refresh update table of  content so if I added any more headings or   the pages changes I can go and update and now  these automatically update notice I have six   there versus the five pages before so a quick way  to add a table of contents and to uh update it if   you add any others but let's see how we can insert  things like pictures and tables into this document

now I have some spots where I want to insert  some images into this and uh for the first one   it's going to be right through here so where it  says figure one I'm just going to go and place   an image in I'm going to go up top and you'll  notice that there's an in insert image this is   the same thing to go over here insert image both  will get you to the same place we can upload from   computer search the web go from Google Drive  photos camera or even by URL I'll give you a   couple different examples if I want to do this by  search the web and when you search the web through   Google these are Creative Commons but make sure  you check with your licensing uh I will type in   Iron Man and when that comes up I get a bunch of  different images so if I was going to pick let's   say this one and since my cursor was over here  when I went in that's where it should go so I have   this checked and I go insert and it's placed in  now some adjustments I can do to this right away   if I click on this image I can size it I could  grab the handles and Shrink this down now you   can see a little bit more around it I want to show  you these different WAP text features so right now   it's on inline if I go to wrap text notice now  how the text goes around it and then I can   choose how far the distance away from the image  is by doing this and you can even do a custom one   so if I keep it at a quarter inch all around this  docu around this image that's how far the text is   away if now that I've changed the to the wrapping  I can actually drag this around and notice how the   image goes into the text so I can adjust this  wherever I would like I can move it around if   you're on this one you can't drag it around that  way but you have some different options so if I go   break text you can see how it pushes everything  down we have behind text so the text is on top   of it right now and we have in front of text so  this is blocking the text so you pick what will   work best for your format a lot of times I'm using  this one and moving it within we have some more   options in here you can see fix position on page  position options if I click on um any of these if   I go to uh position options notice that we have  it does open up a lot more options to customize   uh all these different parts of the image I'm not  going to go through all of these I do want to say   you can rotate these as well so if I go to up here  where you can grab it and I can rotate this image   if you want it on a different angle remember you  can always go contrl Z to undo the other thing you   can do is crop the image once you put it in so if  I crop the image I can go up and if I didn't want   it the whole thing I could go ahead and crop it  to whatever ways and then hit enter and now it's   going to be cropped to it so these are just some  things that you can do with images if I was going   to go let's say we go to Captain America here and  if we wanted to insert one here this time upload I   could go to my image I could upload from computer  let's just be random I'm going to pick this and it   will upload from my computer all these options  are going to be the same if I wanted to resize   this change the wrapping rotate you can quickly  make those as those different changes to   it now I want to do a comparative analysis and  I want to add a table I'm going to go ahead and

just delete this part to insert a table we'll  go up to insert and you're going to notice that   there's table right here for my purpose is I want  to let's say do a four uh 4x4 and you can see how   I can choose this just by dragging around with  my mouse now it inserts the table just like   the image where my cursor was we can quickly  add more rows if we needed to if I go to the   last cell here just clicking it and I hit tab it  will automatically add another row if we don't   want a row uh you'll notice even if we right click  when I'm inside the table I can delete rows I can   delete the columns or even delete the table  so if I go delete row it puts it back now the next   thing I want you to point uh to point out is uh  if I click in the table you're going to see that   there's these three little dots that appear this  more and if I'm not inside the table these aren't   here because this will get me to table options and  this is where I could format different colors of   the cells and even the different border colors  so for an example if I want this highlight area   through here to be a different color I could go to  the background color and let's say it's going to   be a light gray notice now as I click out of it uh  we have that top row one uh highlighted that color   or colored that color so I could also go if I  wanted a certain uh table the Border width change   so border color I could choose let's say red it's  really thin right now I could up that and you can   go through and make those adjustments the way you  want I went through and added a bit of content in   here just to show you can quickly adjust the  column widths just by quickly holding down same   thing with the rows you can uh quickly change  those if you wanted to split a cell or column   you can go ahead right click you'll notice that  there's the split cell option here then we can   choose on how we want to split it so in this case  I'll do a quick example of two columns it took   that cell and put two columns in it if I click  out of it and just hover over notice that we have   this right here this is the move table so I can  click and hold on my mouse and now move it to a   different place I'll go contrl Z to put it back so  that's how you can grab it and move it around your document something else you might want to  add is a chart let's add a chart to here

so if I have the spot where I wanted to  go I can click insert you're going to see   chart you can choose bar column line Pi I can  go from sheets but in this case I'm going to   choose pi and then I'll show you how to open  up a sheet from here so we have this py graft   that we' have in here but we want to edit  it with the information that we need so if   I go to this one and notice that if I drop  down or click the ellipses here I can open   source when I open the source it opens up Google  Sheets now I'll make a quick change to here so   in this case Team 4 you can see it's at 34. 5% I'm  going to put a different number so Team 4 now is   at 45 so I can also change we'll say team 10 and  you'll see how quickly we can change all of this   if I go back over to my Google Docs it to update  this I need to update this these two are linked so   it's linked to the Google Sheets and if I need to  make any changes I got to make sure I update this   so that's how you insert charts inside Google Docs  now I want to show you how you can add links to

your Google Docs and these could be internal or  external let's start with an external one let's   say I want to add a link to this text right here  once I have it highlighted I can go up to here   where it says insert link choose it I happen to  have this page open right now you can see one of   my tabs and that's why I could just select it and  it would place it in here or else I could take any   link from here I could copy or contrl C and go  and just contrl V paste it in here hit apply and   I have a link so when I click on this now uh it  will take me to that actual place externally you   can also do this internally you can remove these  links and I'll use this as an example this is copy   this is edit the link this is remove the link and  it will go away if I wanted to let's say this word   and I'm being Rand here but if I take this and  I go to link notice at the bottom I can go to   headings and bookmarks I can quickly  add by the insert similar to what I did with the   headings but if I click on this and let's say if  I wanted to jump to uh this Origins and Creations   this becomes an internal link inside the document  so if I click on it jumps right there so you   can really help people navigate around your  document that way so take advantage of using links another thing you might want in your  document is to have headers or Footers and

page numbers and you can do this in a couple  different ways if I go insert you'll notice   that we have page numbers I can quickly add a page  number to this and you can see if it's top right   hand corner bottom right hand corner if I click  on it gets added very quickly and when I did   that it actually opened up the footer so if you  notice if I go to every page now the p page number   is going to be there I'm just going to go contrl  Z to undo that and I'll show you a different way   if I doubleclick towards the top inside notice I  have the header here or if I go down below at the   bottom of the page I could double click here this  is where I could write something so if it was my   name it becomes on every page in the footer where  I plac this and if you wanted to add a page number   also you could do it the other way I showed you  or you'll notice that we have a footer format we   have page numbers or remove footer if I go page  numbers I can choose where I want this let's say   in the footer whether I want to show first page  or not where do I want it to start numbering and   then I can hit apply so now since I was over here  that's where the page number was put if I just hit   tab if I go down uh you'll see how it changes but  you can set this up the way you would like on all   your different p Pages uh just by playing around  with the footer and the format in it or the header   an incredible important feature to know about is  version history this allows you to go back in time   on your document so if I go up to file version  history C version history it will show me when   I worked on it and can click on those events so if  I say right here if I go back a couple hours I can   expand this also and as I click on different parts  you'll see what I did at that moment so if I go to   a different time I choose to click on it and what  gets added at anytime if I want to revert to that   one I can click on the more actions and restore  to this version I can also make a copy right now   I'm the only one working on this document but if  I had this shared it would show me the different   edits that other people did so I would know  who's doing what or what got changed by who   some tools you might be interested in if you  go up to the tools here you'll notice that we

have spelling and grammar I have those turned  on usually you can check them right here in   the personal dictionary we also have a word count  there is the shortcut for there uh you can quickly   get the information that you want so another  big thing about Google Docs is collaboration I   haven't talked about it much through it but that's  kind of what makes it so good and if I wanted to

be collaborating with a group I can go and share  this document and if I go up to the top notice it   says private to only me if I click share I can do  a few different things with this I can add people   so if I started typing people up here uh I can use  a different email of mine and share it with that   person and then how do I want them to access it do  I want them as an editor this allows them to make   editing U changes to it or do I only want them to  see it so they'll be able to read it but they're   not going to be able to change anything and then  uh do you want them to be a commenter so you can   make it so they can actually add comments to it  when you pick what you want you go ahead and you   could write a message here you can even copy the  link and send it through an email that link and   they'll be able to access this so you could hit  send and that person in their email would be able   to open this up and work on it together with  you another thing I want to point out you can   create have comments so if I go ahead and and  I'll just pick a word again if I pick Marvel

notice that I have S if I have comments right  here add comments I also have ADD comments up   top here so if I click on ADD comments uh I can  make a comment to myself so maybe I'm not shared   with anybody I could go and say you know change  uh change this so I can make a note here and and   I could go comment and then this is not showing  up in the document uh but maybe it's something I   need to remember and then when I'm done it I can  hit the check mark and it goes away if you want   to add the comment and add aim it at somebody  just go ahead and use the at symbol and then you   can uh it will connect with people that uh you'd  want them to uh to be notified from so you can be   assigning them to it so that's a quick way if  you're working in group you can make a comment   and aim it directly at somebody by using the at  symbol and then the email address and you can   even assign uh it through here so take advantage  all those different ways to collaborate I hope   this beginner's tutorial on how to use Google  Docs has really helped you out there's a lot   more features in Google Docs I just wanted to  focus on the ones I thought that would be most   useful for beginners to making sure you can level  up your documents to be looking professional let   me know what else you want to learn about  Google Bo and other Tech products thanks   for watching this week on teachers Tech I'll see  you next time with more Tech tips and tutorials