Google Docs inserts drawings

Jake Widman
Friday, 27 March 2009 01:03

IT Industry - Development

Google's online application suite, which already offered word processing, a spreadsheet, and presentations, has added a basic drawing program.

The new feature, as documented on the Official Google Docs Blog , is called Insert Drawing and is found under the Insert menus in each of the other three modules. The command brings up a drawing interface similar to the one found in Microsoft Office.

In addition to tools for drawing and editing lines, arrows, and text, the new feature also offers a selection of basic shapes for organization charts, flow charts, and other stock diagramming tasks. Insert Drawing is based on the technology Google acquired in 2007 with its purchase of Tonic Systems, which also formed the basis for Google Docs' presentation module.

The functions in Insert Drawing are useful but very basic. You can create text labels and change the style and size of the text, for example, but you only get one font. You can connect shapes with lines and arrows to build a diagram, but the connectors aren't "live" -- they don't move with the shapes they're connected to -- the way they would in Visio. And while you can draw a freehand scribble, editing options are limited to stretching, rotating, and resizing -- there's no way to change the shape of the line itself after it's drawn.

The feature does put Google Docs one up on rival Zoho , however. The Zoho application suite offers a similar drawing interface, but only in its Presentation module.

Google's Insert Drawing joins a few other new, free online drawing and charting tools. Last week saw the debut of Lovely Charts 2.0, a browser-based diagramming tool with a wide variety of shapes and symbols with live connectors. And last month Aviary introduced Raven , a browser-based vector drawing application more aimed at art creation than at diagramming.