A recent IT World article has highlighted how the introduction of a new tool by Google could make life easier for those trying to navigate their way through a lengthy document in Google docs on the Web with a tablet and on Android.

The Outline Tool

One of the challenges for those of us who use Google’s online collaborative word processor ‘Google Docs’ is that navigation through documents, particularly lengthy ones, can be a slow process if its just a case of only being able to scroll through to find a specific section. The new ‘Outline’ tool from Google is designed to speed things up displaying a pane on the left hand side of the page that shows the features and headers of the document and allows you to jump quickly between each of the sections. To enable the tool to work for you even if you don’t have headers in your document, the Outline tool will intelligently set up headers for you to allow quicker navigation, and it will give you the option of removing these headers afterwards.

‘Handle’ For Android Phone and Tablet

For those using an Android phone or tablet to navigate their Google Docs document the Outline tool will display a small semi-circle-shaped navigation handle on the screen which allows you to move quickly between the various sections without having to rely on the normal ‘swiping’ means of navigation.

How To Access The New Feature

To load the new Outline Tool when using Google Docs click on Tools > Document Outline while in Docs on your computer or, if using Android select Document outline from the overflow menu.

For those who don’t want to wait for the update to be rolled out via the Google Play Store the android changes are available now on APK Mirror.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For those of us who need to store, share and collaborate on documents via the trusted Google Docs system this can only make life easier by saving time and reducing frustration and hassle. This saved time could ultimately translate into saved costs for your business, including opportunity cost savings. For Google this is in essence a change that could aid customer retention, increase the perceived value, and extend the lifecycle of the Google Docs service, thus helping it to compete with other collaborative working systems. It may be relatively small but helpful changes like these that help business customers to stay close to Google and could translate into the uptake of paid-for services as all of Google becomes amore monetised over time.