Google Docs, along with the rest of Workspace – Slides and Sheets – are incredibly easy to use with some great editing and collaboration tools, except when it comes to the commenting feature.
But now a new update will make the tool much easier to use on a collaborative basis, An said official Google blog entry. The update addresses UI clutter in the Comments section by adding a new “For You” section, as well as an option to reduce clutter by minimizing the Comments sidebar.
When you use the Comments button next to the Revision History button, you’ll see a sidebar with two tabs: For You and All Comments. The former is the one that filters out all comments made except those addressed to you, while the latter shows comments made to everyone who has access to that document. This highlights comments made on a document tagged specifically to you and no one else, reducing clutter.
From there, you can click on a comment to expand each comment individually, so that the comment floats next to the text it’s linked to. This particular feature is called the Expand Comments option in the View Menu, and it’s a tool that Sheets doesn’t have.
However, only Sheets and Docs still have a new tool called “Minimize Comments,” which lets you close the Comments sidebar and shrink the comments to mini icons. This setting provides a quick preview of information about who is commenting when you hover over the minimized icons.
Finally, Docs, Sheets, and Slides all have a Hide Comments tool, which hides comments when you want to focus solely on the content. This feature is useful for people who use devices with smaller screens, such as tablets and Chromebooks.
Some users already have access to this ‘Comments’ overhaul, although the full rollout of the update will begin on March 1, 2024 and should be completed by March 4, according to Google. It will be available to all Google Workspace users.
It’s good to see Google giving us even more updates to its Workspace, and this time one that’s actually useful and not detrimental to everyday use.
Meanwhile, the recent addition of the ‘@ button’ tool for Google Docs is still as clunky and useless as it was when it was first implemented in October 2023. It automatically adds the ‘@’ symbol when a user goes to an empty line goes. in a Google Doc, which offers several options for what to insert Google calls ‘smart chip technology’ such as people, dates, timers, file chips, building blocks, calendar events, groups and more.
However, it just makes using Docs much more annoying and clunky to use, and there’s no way to disable this feature in the settings once it’s enabled. Hopefully Google will reverse that decision at some point, as some people might find it useful, but many others would find it extremely distracting.