How Google Workspace works seamlessly with Microsoft Office

Google Workspace helps you get more done with communication and collaboration tools known and loved by billions of users, thoughtfully connected together. While billions of users choose Google Workspace, they also need to effectively collaborate with partners, customers and even teammates that might use other tools. In particular, those who work with a mix of Google Workspace and Microsoft applications. Google Workspace has made it easy to work with Microsoft Office and Office 365, helping you collaborate productively from any device with anyone, regardless of what tools you use.

Save time with helpful intelligence and faster workflows in Google Workspace

Creating and collaborating on content is at the heart of getting work done. When working with content received from customers, partners or teammates, employees shouldn’t lose time converting files or working in unfamiliar tools. 

With Google Drive, you can store and share over 100 different file types and formats including Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, as well as PDFs, images and videos. By using intelligent features like Priority and Quick Access in Drive, you can find files nearly 50% faster. 

With Office editing, users can also easily edit Microsoft Office files in Google Docs, Sheets and Slides without converting them with the added benefit of layering on Google Workspace’s enhanced collaborative and assistive features. From assigning action items via comment, to writing faster with Smart Compose, to accelerating data entry with Sheets Smart Fill, Office editing brings Google Workspace functionality to your Office files. Google recently extended Office editing to the Docs, Sheets and Slides mobile apps as well, so you can easily work on Office files on the go. 

Now, you can also open Office files for editing directly from a Gmail attachment, further simplifying your workflows. For example, when you receive a Word document as an email attachment, you can open it and start editing in Docs with a single click while still preserving the Word file format. Then you can respond to the original email thread and include the updated file, right from Docs, saving you time by eliminating steps like downloading the file to edit or searching for the relevant email to reattach it to.

It’s important that your Office files look consistent when opened in Docs, Sheets and Slides, so Google continue to support additional formatting options used in Office files. Google announced mixed page orientation support in Docs, so you can create Docs or edit Word files with mixed landscape and portrait pages. Next year, Google will add support for inserting images behind text and watermarks, to give you further flexibility.

When it comes to spreadsheets, many organisations maintain both Excel and Sheets, especially when relying heavily on macros that have been built over time to automate processes. In Sheets, it’s easy for anyone to record macros without having to write any code. To make it easier for teams to transition from Excel to Sheets or support co-existence of these tools, Google introduced a new Macro Conversion add-on that helps users migrate macros from Excel to Sheets. This way, teams can save time through automation without having to start from scratch.

Stay connected with others, wherever you are

Business growth is fueled by people connecting and generating ideas together, whether they are working from the same office or dispersed around the globe. Google Workspace makes it easy to schedule time and meet with others, helping you maintain a connection with your collaborators and accomplish more together, from any device, anywhere.  

To make and maintain these connections, people need an easy way to schedule time with others, regardless of which calendaring system they are using. Some organisations run mixed calendaring environments. To help in such scenarios, the Google Calendar Interop tool makes it easy for people to schedule and book resources regardless of which system they’re on. With Calendar Interop, teams across systems can see each other’s free/busy status, event details, and book shared resources so that they don’t need an endless exchange of chats or emails to land on a time that works for both parties. 

Google Meet is another powerful tool for keeping employees connected. With Meet, it’s easy for teams to connect via secure, enterprise-grade video conferencing from any device. Google Workspace customers can invite anyone to join a Meet call including people using Outlook who don’t have a Google Account. If using Outlook to schedule events, users can easily add Meet video conferencing details using the Google Meet add-in for Microsoft Outlook. With a simple tap of the meeting link in your email or calendar, you can easily connect face-to-face with your collaborators.

Be productive from anywhere with custom solutions 

Often, certain tasks and processes require employees to develop custom applications to manage them. Understanding how to code can be a huge barrier for employees faced with this challenge but Google Cloud’s AppSheet enables anyone to build applications without having to write code. AppSheet is available to all Google Workspace users and has a number of tight integrations that make it easy to build custom apps on top of Google Workspace apps, like Google Sheets.

AppSheet is designed to work on any device and can connect to your data and spreadsheets, wherever they live. While AppSheet and Google Workspace are tightly integrated, AppSheet also easily connects to O365 data sources such as Excel spreadsheets stored in OneDrive or SharePoint. AppSheet creates a bridge between environments such as custom apps and automations can connect to Google Workspace and Microsoft Office apps simultaneously, so that teams and processes split between environments can be managed more seamlessly. Plus, with AppSheet, even Microsoft users can easily incorporate Google’s AI and machine learning capabilities, like optical character recognition and sentiment analysis, into their apps.

Flexibility is important when it comes to effective collaboration and with Google Workspace you’ll be assured of continuous improvements that will enable you to work seamlessly with the rest of the tools you use, helping you accomplish more, faster.