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Google Docs New Feature: Pageless

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Re: Google Docs New Feature: Pageless

#11

Post by punnerud »

lewisjoe wrote: post #4

I'm in the business of building an online word processor - https://www.zoho.com/writer It's interesting how the documents industry is moving from print oriented legacy softwares (Google Docs, Word) to block based, app-ish, smart canvases (Notion, Coda, etc). Also both Microsoft & Google have adopted completely different strategies to compete in this market. Microsoft launched Loop as an entirely new app while Google…

Not from document to block, but from XML-based into database-based.

Try to open a Word document with a zip program, all you will see is a lot of folders with XML and blob images.

Latex and Word is XML. Notion is database.

The benefit of database: History, scale better, multiple users, merge text as diff is simpler +++

Re: Google Docs New Feature: Pageless

#12

Post by mattzito »

dna_polymerase wrote: post #3

Great, personally I'd prefer to properly format letters (DIN 5008-B, anyone) without the need for invisible tables. Insert graphics without them looking like the page did not load correctly and have some sort of macro, variable system to make proper use of templates. Also, I'd love to upload my company's fonts or something a simple as proper numbering in lists with lists in them, but that probably just me trying to u…

FWIW, the fonts issue isn’t a technical limitation, it’s a legal/licensing one. Font foundries license by the seat, and scenarios like docs where documents can be shared outside an organization and the font travels with it are against the rules. Office online has the same issue for the same reasons.

There are exceptions, where a company has developed a font internally and owns the font directly, but those are far and few between. Even when a company has commissioned a font from a foundry, they’re usually licensing it from the foundry rather than owning it themselves as a work for hire.

(Source: googler, used to work on workspace, and through a random series of events ended up working closely with the google fonts team on this problem)

EDIT: also, you should be able to use apps script to do document generation from templates, that’s a pretty common use case.

Re: Google Docs New Feature: Pageless

#13

Post by slig »

chippiewill wrote: post #7
adrianomartins wrote: post #2

Welcome to 2022, Google Docs. Unfortunately there's still a long way to Notion or Dropbox Paper.

It's utterly bizarre just how much Google docs seems to have dropped the ball. It really feels like they haven't developed the product in the past 10 years. This is the first significant feature change that I can recall in a very long time other than minor UI tweaks.

I think it's great as this gives new companies the opportunity to eat their lunch.

Re: Google Docs New Feature: Pageless

#14

Post by Already__Taken »

chippiewill wrote: post #7
adrianomartins wrote: post #2

Welcome to 2022, Google Docs. Unfortunately there's still a long way to Notion or Dropbox Paper.

It's utterly bizarre just how much Google docs seems to have dropped the ball. It really feels like they haven't developed the product in the past 10 years. This is the first significant feature change that I can recall in a very long time other than minor UI tweaks.

I'm heavy into Google and hard a lot of gsuite education deployed. I was always agasp at how Google just doesn't improve gdocs/sheets sometimes at all for years. why do the two programs have different table/cell markup up and even options...

Re: Google Docs New Feature: Pageless

#15

Post by [deleted] »

mattzito wrote: post #12
dna_polymerase wrote: post #3

Great, personally I'd prefer to properly format letters (DIN 5008-B, anyone) without the need for invisible tables. Insert graphics without them looking like the page did not load correctly and have some sort of macro, variable system to make proper use of templates. Also, I'd love to upload my company's fonts or something a simple as proper numbering in lists with lists in them, but that probably just me trying to u…

FWIW, the fonts issue isn’t a technical limitation, it’s a legal/licensing one. Font foundries license by the seat, and scenarios like docs where documents can be shared outside an organization and the font travels with it are against the rules. Office online has the same issue for the same reasons. There are exceptions, where a company has developed a font internally and owns the font directly, but those are far and…

[deleted]

Re: Google Docs New Feature: Pageless

#16

Post by afandian »

punnerud wrote: post #11
lewisjoe wrote: post #4

I'm in the business of building an online word processor - https://www.zoho.com/writer It's interesting how the documents industry is moving from print oriented legacy softwares (Google Docs, Word) to block based, app-ish, smart canvases (Notion, Coda, etc). Also both Microsoft & Google have adopted completely different strategies to compete in this market. Microsoft launched Loop as an entirely new app while Google…

Not from document to block, but from XML-based into database-based. Try to open a Word document with a zip program, all you will see is a lot of folders with XML and blob images. Latex and Word is XML. Notion is database. The benefit of database: History, scale better, multiple users, merge text as diff is simpler +++

Surely once you've got a block inside a block you're back to the XML model again?

Re: Google Docs New Feature: Pageless

#17

Post by Veen »

dna_polymerase wrote: post #3

Great, personally I'd prefer to properly format letters (DIN 5008-B, anyone) without the need for invisible tables. Insert graphics without them looking like the page did not load correctly and have some sort of macro, variable system to make proper use of templates. Also, I'd love to upload my company's fonts or something a simple as proper numbering in lists with lists in them, but that probably just me trying to u…

The missing feature I find most irritating is the lack of sophisticated paragraph and character style options. Normal text plus a bunch of headings isn't sufficient for the sort of documents I need to write.

Re: Google Docs New Feature: Pageless

#18

Post by user-the-name »

chippiewill wrote: post #7
adrianomartins wrote: post #2

Welcome to 2022, Google Docs. Unfortunately there's still a long way to Notion or Dropbox Paper.

It's utterly bizarre just how much Google docs seems to have dropped the ball. It really feels like they haven't developed the product in the past 10 years. This is the first significant feature change that I can recall in a very long time other than minor UI tweaks.

No post body was provided.

Re: Google Docs New Feature: Pageless

#19

Post by _Algernon_ »

punnerud wrote: post #11
lewisjoe wrote: post #4

I'm in the business of building an online word processor - https://www.zoho.com/writer It's interesting how the documents industry is moving from print oriented legacy softwares (Google Docs, Word) to block based, app-ish, smart canvases (Notion, Coda, etc). Also both Microsoft & Google have adopted completely different strategies to compete in this market. Microsoft launched Loop as an entirely new app while Google…

Not from document to block, but from XML-based into database-based. Try to open a Word document with a zip program, all you will see is a lot of folders with XML and blob images. Latex and Word is XML. Notion is database. The benefit of database: History, scale better, multiple users, merge text as diff is simpler +++

How is Latex XML?
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