Google Docs Adds Drawings, Search-and-Replace Toolbar

Google rolled out some new goodies last week, most notably a tool that lets you add drawings and diagrams to your Google Docs documents.

Accessible from the Insert menu, the Drawing tool offers lines, arrowheads, free-form scribbling, fills, text labels, and the like, along with dozens of diagram-ready shapes. And all that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The new tool could best be described as a Web-based Microsoft Visio (or, more accurately, a Google-powered Gliffy). With it you can whip up flow charts, diagrams, organizational charts, and so on.

See that little Pac-Man drawing below? That took me about 60 seconds. I did encounter one minor bug: When you select a drawing tool, the entire toolbar gets grayed out, indicating that it's no longer accessible. It is: Just click another tool if you want.

What's particularly cool is that you can collaborate with co-workers on your drawings, just as you can with the document itself.

Here's a look at what else is new in Google Docs:

• Find and replace toolbar for text documents The "Find and replace" feature in the text document Edit menu has gotten a makeover and an upgrade. Now it's a slick toolbar that sports case matching, whole word matching as well as regular expression-style matching.
• XLSX import You can now import supporting cell data, formatting, formulas, font style, background color, named ranges, frozen panes, and horizontal merges from Excel '07.
• Google Apps automatic identity in Forms This feature enables the collection of the user's email address when filling out a form on a Google Apps domain.
• Form summary page The form summary page can now be printed.
• List view in the desktop version of Google spreadsheets You can now use list view's simple design and powerful filtering and sorting on your desktop or notebook computer.