New Updates
Scroll and zoom while presenting in Google Meet
June ,2024
What's Changing
When you’re presenting in Google Meet, you can now scroll and zoom in or out on your content directly from Meet. This eliminates the need to switch between tabs, helping you focus more on delivering your presentation. | This feature is available now for all
Switch between edit, view and comment mode in Google Slides
June ,2024
What's Changing
We’re making it easier for you to switch between different modes in Google Slides. For example, if you’d like to hide comments within a presentation or avoid accidental edits, you can switch to view mode. Choosing commenting mode hides all options associated with editing, but still allows you to read and add comments. To change your mode, navigate to the View > Mode > select a mode.
Create Looker Studio reports from Google Sheets
April 26 ,2024
What's Changing
Looker Studio enables users to quickly build interactive reports and dashboards, and starting today they can now be created directly from Google Sheets. More specifically, users can:
Pick which sheet or cell range to use in the generated report on Looker Studio.
Transform the data in Sheets to an automatically generated Looker Studio report in a single click, and save and share the report with an individual or a team.
Use annotations to enhance your presentations in Google Meet
April 18 ,2024
What's Changing
Introducing annotation tools in Google Meet. Presenters and their appointed co-annotators can use these tools to highlight content or make other notations over presented content. Annotations will be on by default when you begin presenting — you can open the annotations menu to access various tools such as a pen, disappearing ink, sticker, text box, and more.
To assign a co-annotator, from the people panel or by hovering over a user’s video tile, select more options (three-dot icon) > add as co-annotator.
March 26 ,2024
What's Changing
we’re excited to introduce voice messages on Chat mobile (with web support coming soon). . You can send voice messages on mobile (to direct messages, group chats and spaces) and receive them on all platforms, including the web. However, you cannot send voice messages on web at this time.
Sending a voice message instead of typing enables you to save time, convey more information, and emphasize the most important information for the message receiver. We hope this highly requested feature helps you communicate with others more effectively.
March 27 ,2024
What's Changing
Google Chat spaces are enhanced to improve upon the file management experience and create a central place to manage all conversation-related artefacts. The updated tab will now be called Shared.
In addition to the new tab name, you will also notice a refreshed user interface and features like a sort drop-down menu, support for shared links and media files, and more.
This update reflects our continued effort to make Google Chat the central hub for project and team collaboration in Google Workspace.
February 27, 2024
What's Changing
The new markups experience lets you add handwritten annotations to documents with a stylus or your finger when using an Android device.
Markups can be useful in numerous scenarios, such as:
Colleagues giving each other handwritten feedback on diagrams, charts, reports or proposals.
Educators giving students feedback on their essays, reports, short stories and more.
A homeowner providing ideas or updates on construction plans from their contractor.
February 15,2024
What's Changing
Introducing an improved comments experience in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides to help you find and take action on comments easier than ever before. You can explore new and familiar ways to interact with comments by going to View > Comments and selecting:
Show all comments
Expand comments (in Google Docs and Slides)
Minimise comments (in Google Docs and Sheets)
Hide comments:
February 05, 2024
What's Changing
If you’re a meeting host or co-host, you can now pin up to three specific tiles for all meeting participants. By doing so, you can help ensure the meeting is focused on key presentations and speakers. This is especially helpful for large meeting scenarios like webinars where hosts need to focus everyone on particular content. Note that meeting participants can unpin these tiles on their screen if they wish.
January 23, 2024
What’s changing
We’ve expanded support for closed captioning to include the following additional languages:
Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Australian English, Basque, Burmese, Catalan, English (India), English (Philippines), Estonian, Farsi, Filipino, Galician, Georgian, Hungarian, Javanese, Latvian, Macedonian, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Sundanese, Tamil (India), Telugu (India), Urdu, Uzbek, Zulu
January 17, 2024
What’s changing
We’re launching three new features to personalise your appearance in Google Meet. Specifically, we’re adding:
Combine multiple video effects on web and mobile: You can now combine a background effect with a filter effect to create a more dynamic, fun experience. This gives you the flexibility to find the right mix of effects that will represent you best during your meetings. The new layer icon on your self view tile can be used to keep track of which effects you’re using and remove one or all effects at once.
January 11, 2024
What’s changing
Since introducing the new sharing dialog for Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms in 2020, we’ve made several enhancements to make sharing effortless across Workspace. Today, we’re excited to announce the option to share any file with all meeting participants on a Google Calendar invite via the sharing dialog within a file.
As a file owner or editor, go to the Share button in a file > type in the title of a calendar event > select the event > confirm the correct list of meeting attendees are added > select the users’ access level > click Send.
If you’d like to link the file to the calendar invite, you can select “Attach to calendar event” before clicking Send.
November 28, 2023
What’s changing
We’re introducing slides recordings, a new Google Slides feature that lets you easily record yourself presenting, and then share the presentation with others to view when it works for them. From webinars, to employee training, to lessons for your classroom, slides recordings help you effortlessly record visual and engaging presentations without ever leaving Slides.
This feature helps you share more engaging video presentations with others for easy, flexible viewing. Whether sharing video content inside of your company or externally, with slides recordings you don’t need to use a separate video recording tool. You can use your computer's built-in or external camera and microphone hardware to add your voice and webcam feed to your recording.
November 28, 2023
What’s changing
Today, we’re excited to introduce the latest series of changes that accelerate user productivity across new views in Drive. A new streamlined homepage for Drive called Home makes it easier and faster for you to find files that matter most. Specifically, you’ll notice:
Personalized file and folder suggestions with machine learning algorithms that can help you get started quickly. These suggestions utilize a variety of signals, such as what files or folders you’ve recently opened, shared or edited, or what documents are attached to upcoming Calendar events.
Filter chips to narrow down your search and find relevant files faster across Drive, making it easy to find suggested files by type, people, modified date or the location.
A more modern design inline with Google Material Design 3 guidelines that helps you navigate across Drive much more efficiently.
When you go to drive.google.com, instead of landing in ‘My Drive’ you will now be directed to ‘Home.’ If you would like to set your default to ‘My Drive,’ click on the “Change to My Drive” option in the banner on Home:
November 21, 2023
What’s changing
Until now, raising your hand to ask a question in Google Meet is done by clicking the hand-raise icon. Starting today, you can also raise your physical hand and Meet will recognize it with gesture detection. To ensure the gesture is detected, make sure your camera is enabled and your hand is visible to the camera, away from your face and body. As an active speaker, the gesture detection will not be triggered; when you’re no longer the active speaker, gesture detection will resume.
November 17, 2023
What’s changing
We’re introducing enhanced search query suggestions, a feature already available on mobile, that helps you find the right message, person, file, or space in Chat on the web.
When searching in Chat, you will now see query suggestions based on historical search activity, sorted by relevance. The top suggestion will also appear in the search box and you can press “Tab” to autofill the query. You can also delete a suggested query by hovering over it and clicking on the “x” icon next to it.
November 16, 2023
What’s changing
We’re excited to introduce starred on web, an additional shortcut in the redesigned navigation panel that helps you stay on top of your most important messages in Chat. This feature enables you to “star” any messages in Chat for easy access via the starred shortcut in the navigation panel, and can be useful when you need to come back to a message later.
Previous releases - 2024
Greater visibility with additional Google Calendar statuses in Google Chat
Write messages faster and easier with smart compose in Google Chat
Respond to access requests for Google Workspace files more efficiently
Making focus time more productive with new Google Calendar setting
Negotiate time directly in Gmail to schedule meetings faster
Easily set up dropdown chips in Google Sheets with a new pre-fill feature
Adding bulk conversion for place chips in Google Sheets
View speaker notes while co-presenting Google Slides in Google Meet
Birthday decorations for people cards
Pair your video tile in Google Meet to improve accessibility for users with language interpreters
Collaborate more seamlessly with live pointers in Google Slides
Expanding Smart replies everywhere you receive messages in Google Chat
For any queries related to the new releases or if you would like to know in detail about these releases then please write to IT.Trainers@tearfund.org or Marc.lawler@tearfund.org