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The “Explore” tool has replaced the Research tool and is mainly aimed at those writing academic papers, essays, etc, but it can be useful for anyone. It allows you to search for things on Google without having to leave your document. Plus, it allows you to add that information directly into it. You can search for the following:
- Websites
- Images
- Your Drive
We’ll also look at the “Define” tool.
Explore tool
To open the Explore tool, either go to the Tools menu and select “Explore”.
Or you can click on the shortcut at the bottom of the screen:
If you hover over it, the word Explore appears.
This opens the side bar and a search box. Sometimes, it will look at the content of your document and automatically suggest some sites, but despite the fanfare that has gone with the use of AI on this, I’ve not found it to be very useful, at least for the moment.
Type in what you want to look for. By default, it will show a few websites, but there is also the option to search for images and items on your drive.
In the Web tab, if you want to see more possible results, you have to click on the link at the bottom which will take you to the normal Google search page. In my view, this defeats the point of having the search within Docs. The Research tool, allowed you to scroll down and look for more results whilst still in Docs.
Clicking on the 3 dots next to web results, you can change the citation format.
Clicking on the Images tab brings up some images related to the search term. This one does allow you to scroll down and see more images without having to leave the document.
To insert an image, you can either drag and drop it into your document or click the plus button.
This will add the image there and also it will contain the link from where it came from, e.g.
Finally, you can also search your Drive by clicking on Drive.
Define
The dictionary is used when you ask Docs to “define” a word. To define something, highlight the word or phrase and go to the “Tools” menu and select “Define”. This will provide you with some information about the word as above.
There is a shortcut to both the Explore and Define menus. Highlight the word or phrase you want and right-click. Then from the menu either select “Explore…” or “Define…”.
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eBooks available on Drive, Forms, Sheets, Docs, Slides, and Sheet Functions:
- “Beginner’s Guide to Google Drive” – iBooks store / Kindle store
- “Beginner’s Guide to Google Forms” – iBooks store / Kindle store
- “Beginner’s Guide to Google Sheets” – iBooks store / Kindle store
- “Beginner’s Guide to Google Docs” – iBooks Store / Kindle store
- “Beginner’s Guide to Google Slides” – iBooks Store / Kindle store
- “Google Sheet Functions – A step-by-step guide” – iBooks Store / Kindle Store
Baz Roberts (Google+ / Flipboard / Twitter)
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