Replacing PDFs with Google Documents

For years, PDFs were the preferred vehicle for creating documents that looked exactly the way you laid them out. Different browsers were notorious for reformatting text and layouts - you never knew exactly how things were going to be displayed. But PDFs bring their own challenges - it's a separate file you have to download, sometimes you need a different piece of software to view it, and it doesn't reformat itself for mobile devices.

As an alternative, take a look at Google Docs, the word processing app that's part of Google Drive. The power of these web based apps can allow you to create some beautiful looking documents with some great advantages:

• they're web pages so no need to download a separate file
• text will re-warp to fit your device (images may not always fit the window size0
• you can easily update them
• you can collaboratively work on keeping them up to date
• you'll never lose the original document

Once you have your document looking the way you want, just go under the Share settings and make sure all users (or only those you want) can view the page!

Discover more about the share settings!

Set background colour of spreadsheet cells using conditional formatting

I'll often use Google's spreadsheets as a sort of checklist - the collaboration function is great when you're working with others. However, looking at a long list of items and trying to see what has been completed vs what needs to done can become a task in itself. That's why I like to use conditional formatting to change the background colour of cells - helps me determine where to focus my energies.

Let's pretend I'm building a house and I have the framing all in place. I'm trying to co-ordinate 2 trades: electrical and drywall. Obviously, the electrical needs to be in before the drywall goes up. Once those two tasks are done, I can go in and paint.

As each trade is finished a room, I ask them to place a Y (Yes) in their column. Once both columns show green, I know the room's ready for me to go in and paint. This spreadsheet will also let the drywaller know when he can go into a room and do his work. Here are the steps you need to do this:

1. Select the cells you want the conditional formatting to run on.
2. Select Conditional formatting from the Format menu.
3. Select the condition you want met (in this case, text contains Y).
4. Select the colour of the text/background you want when this condition is met.
5. Save the rules.

As I like to visualize where the holdups are, I add an additional rule that makes the cell red if empty.

Check out the spreadsheet in action!