We here at Real Estate Mogul are pumped to have the honor of providing important educational information about real estate investing.
Yes, we pride ourselves on the current and relevant lessons we provide almost every day of every week.
But as cool and smart as we think we are (aren’t we?), we know our subscribers often posses loads of knowledge about this stuff, too.
So it should come as no surprise that the idea for today’s lesson about Google Drive originated with a helpful tip we received in the Comments section of our recent lesson about 5 “Techabilities” Every Super Investor Should Know.
Specifically, we’d like to offer a grateful shout-out out to the awesome tipster herself, Natalya Krahn, who said:
“Another tip for paperless cloud storage – the Google Drive app has the ability to scan pages, convert to PDF and store it in your Google Drive right away. Just discovered this yesterday, Google seems to come out with new thing every day and I can't say enough about Google Apps for business, just amazing to pull up docs anywhere in the world!”
Wow! We couldn’t agree more Natalya; so we’re sending you a virtual high five!
Now read on for 5 things you didn’t know you could do with Google Drive…
5 Cool Things about Google Drive
#1. Scan Docs, Convert to PDF & Store in your Drive with Google Drive App
Who doesn’t love scanning?
It’s paperless (go green!), it lightens the load, it makes docs easily searchable, and it makes workflows faster.
In fact a recent study found that scanning improves the speed of response by three-times or more to customers, suppliers, citizens or staff.
Nuf said, right?
Well, perhaps not.
You can now scan docs from an Android phone with the scan-to-Google Drive feature from their Android Google Drive app. That’s right… If your Android device has a camera, then you’ve got a built-in scanner!
Once you are logged into Google drive, just follow these simple steps:
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Open the app and touch the scan icon.
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Use your cell’s camera to take a pic of the doc.
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Adjust color and edges as needed.
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Scan more pages if needed.
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Review your upload.
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Do a happy dance, because this feature rocks!
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(Okay, that last one is not really one of the “official” steps, but it just felt necessary.)
You can even search for your newly scanned PDF on Google Drive, thanks to Google’s character recognition software. Can you say awesome!?
#2. Embed a Video on a Web Page with Google Drive
This article on lifehacker.com lays it out nicely, but here’s the basic gist of it all…
You can simply upload a video to Drive and click the option to “Embed this Video”. Then a code is provided which you’ll use on your website, blog or wherever.
This one’s an easy no brainer, for sure!
#3. Save Gmail Attachments Directly to Google Drive
Google recently unveiled two rad features for Gmail attachments.
For starters, you can now save attachments directly to Google Drive from within your Gmail messages. Simply click on the Google Drive icon that appears when you hover your cursor over the attachment, and then choose where to send it.
And if that’s not awesome enough for all you techies, attachments are also now visible as previews at the bottom of each Gmail message. So rather than simply viewing a list of files with the option to explore them in a separate browser tab, you now can actually see a preview within the message itself.
(Can we get a “Hallelujah” for that one?!)
Now when you click on preview, a fullscreen view of the file comes up. You can even navigate through multiple attachments, just as you would a photo slideshow.
(Amen, people!)
#4. Create Full-Blown Presentations with Google Slides
You’ll definitely want to check out Google Slides if you need to create a dynamic real estate presentation, or perhaps if your kid needs to ace a book report with an animated presentation.
Google Slides offers a user-friendly interface for collaborating on top-notch presentations. Using archaic PowerPoint templates and emailing presentations back-and-forth are now a thing of the past, thanks to the updated interface for Google Slides.
Some super new features include:
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Character-by-character collaboration. See updates in real time as you edit presentations with other people.
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Drawing on canvas. Draw organizational charts, flowcharts and design diagrams.
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New transitions between slides.
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New animation themes.
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Commenting tool. Collaborators can leave notes and comments throughout your documents, for everyone to see.
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Update old presentations. Import older presentations into Google Slides, and it’ll automatically upgrade the presentation with the new bells and whistles.
#5. Send Gigantic Attachments That are Always Up-to-Date
We know you’ve experienced the major bummer of not being able to send emails with large attachments. And we’re only talking like 1 or 2 megabytes, not books.
(Antiquated email systems, you should be ashamed of yourselves!)
But I digress, because the geniuses at Google have now made it possible for you to insert “attachments” from Google Drive into your Gmail messages – up to 10 Gigabytes in size.
Bigger is better, huh?!
And there’s no more problem with keeping track of which file is the most recent working version. If you do make a change to the doc in Google Drive, that one email (with the original Drive link) is still current.
Gmail also checks to ensure that the file you attached is open for access to everybody in the message.
Just remember, in order to use this crazy cool feature, you’ll need to click Gmail’s link for the “New Compose Experience”.
Bonus (Because We Love You So Much!)
#6. Access Google Drive Just Like a Folder on Your Computer
Bonus 6th tip! Most people think you can only interface with Google Drive through your browser. But that is not true!
You can easily install the free Google Drive application to your desktop, by simply opening Google Drive and clicking the option to “Connect Drive to Your Desktop.”
In this manner, Google’s cloud storage system basically becomes a folder on your computer, into which you may drag and drop all your stuff.
You can access the data any time you want from drive.google.com, even on mobile devices.
Three cheers for Google Drive!
Learn the Google Drive Basics – Playing around with all this awesomeness can be overwhelming. So casually surf through Drive a bit at first, in order to get a feel for it and create a comfortable foundation.
Invest a Little Time in the Features from this Lesson – Spending some time learning about these terrific features will most certainly save you loads of time in the future. Now, you won’t have to send a huge attachment piecemeal, and you can literally see edits being made to an animated presentation in real time. Tick tock…
Get Google Drive and Use It – All of It! – Do It! You won’t be sorry. As you sit back and enjoy a well-deserved glass of wine with all the extra time you now have, you’ll be thinking,
“How in the world did I ever get by without these before?”