Google Apps For Dummies®
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2008924955
ISBN: 978-0-470-18958-0
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Ryan Teeter is an accomplished writer and technology trainer. He has worked closely with business teachers throughout the country and consulted with the National Business Education Association, businesses, and school districts on Google Apps implementation. Ryan spent time working at Google in Mountain View, California, as an External Training Specialist, developing curriculum used for training Fortune 500 companies.
When he’s not conducting training workshops or writing, Ryan’s pursuing his passion for teaching as a doctoral student at Rutgers University, where he’s completing a PhD in accounting information systems. (www.ryanteeter.com, www.technonerd.info)
Karl Barksdale was a former Development Manager for the Training and Certification team at WordPerfect Corporation and a Marketing Manager in the Consumer Products division. He was also the External Training Manager for Google’s Online Sales and Operations division. He’s best known for authoring and co-authoring 59 business and computer education textbooks. Albeit, the job he enjoys most is teaching at the Utah County Academy of Sciences, an early college high school on the Utah Valley University campus. (www.karlbarksdale.com)
Ryan Teeter
This book is dedicated to my parents and my friends, for whom this book was originally intended.
Karl Barksdale
For Hilary, Cory, and Mari, who make it all worthwhile.
This book wouldn’t have happened without the inspiration and guidance of Esther Wojcicki of Palo Alto High School and Jeremy Milo, the Google Apps Product Marketing Manager at Google. Nor could we have accomplished so much without the External Training Team at Google, of which we were so fortunate to be a part. Here’s to Lance Cotton, Erik Gottlieb, Lauren Frandsen, Kristina Cutura, Charbel Semaan, Tyrona Heath, Mary Hekl, Brian Schreier, and Jared Smith. You guys rock!
We’d also like to give special recognition to our outstanding team at Wiley Publishing, including Greg Croy, executive editor; Jean Nelson, project editor; Laura K. Miller, copy editor; James Kelly, technical editor; and the other incredibly talented and amazing people who made working on this project a real treat.
Along those lines, we’d also like to acknowledge our friends and colleagues at the Rutgers Business School and the Utah County Academy of Science for their support.
Finally, we acknowledge you, the reader, for trusting us to help you make the most out of this amazing and incredibly useful technology.
We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.
Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:
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Copy Editor: Laura K. Miller
Technical Editor: James Kelly
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Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)
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Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies
Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher
Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher
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Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director
Publishing for Consumer Dummies
Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher
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Title
Introduction
About This Book
How This Book Is Organized
Conventions Used in This Book
Icons Used in This Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I : Up and Going with Google Apps
Chapter 1: Introducing Google Apps
Meeting the Google Apps
Welcome to the New Internet
Choosing the Right Google Apps Edition
What’s in It for My Organization?
Can There Possibly Be a Downside?
Chapter 2: Signing Up for Google Apps
Signing Up for Team Edition
Signing Up for Standard Edition
Signing Up for Premier Edition
Signing Up for Education Edition
Verifying Domain Ownership
Chapter 3: The Start Page
Meeting the Start Page
Authenticating Your Account
Adding Google Gadgets
What to Do When the Start Page Misbehaves
Part II : Keeping in Touch and on Time: Gmail, Talk, and Calendar
Chapter 4: Connecting with Gmail
Setting Up E-mail
Starting Gmail
Getting to Know the Inbox
Composing Mail
Following the Conversation
Searching Your Messages
Chapter 5: Discovering Advanced Gmail Tools
Opening Attachments
Creating Signatures and Vacation Responses
Using Labels and Filters to Take Control of Your Inbox
Alternative Access: Forwarding, POP/IMAP, and Mobile
Chapter 6: Keeping in Touch with the Contacts List
Creating a Contacts List
Using Quick Contacts in Gmail
Adding or Updating Contacts
Sorting Contacts into Groups
Chapter 8: Filling Your Calendar
Starting Calendar
Creating and Changing Events
Setting Up Calendar Notifications
Changing Your Calendar Views
Printing Your Calendar
Using Multiple Calendars
Searching Your Calendar
Chapter 9: Sharing Your Calendar with Others
Working with Invitations
Making Your Calendar Available to Others
Scheduling Resources
Embedding Calendar on Your Web Site or Blog
Importing and Exporting Events
Using Calendar on Your Mobile Device
Part III : Getting to Work: Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations
Chapter 10: Finding Your Way around the Google Docs Home
Advantages of Google Docs and the Docs Home
Launching Your Docs Home
Working and Collaborating in Google Docs
Chapter 11: Word Processing with Google Docs
Getting Familiar with the Docs Screen
Editing a Document in Docs
Printing, Publishing, and Converting to Other Formats
Sharing and Collaboration
Chapter 12: Crunching Numbers with Google Spreadsheets
Starting Up a Spreadsheet
Entering, Editing, and Other Spreadsheet Basics
Using Charts, Graphs, and Diagrams
Formula Fixin’
Sharing and Collaboration
Converting and Exporting to Other File Formats
Printing and Publishing Spreadsheets
Chapter 13: Creating Amazing Google Presentations
Starting Up Presentations
Adding Themes, Text, Shapes, and Images to Slides
Organizing Slides
Using the File Menu
Viewing Revisions
Giving Your Presentation
Sharing, Collaborating, and Publishing a Presentation
Part IV : Popping the Hood: Google Apps Administration
Chapter 14: The Dashboard
Exploring the Dashboard
Creating User Accounts
Adjusting User Account Settings
Adjusting Domain Settings
Chapter 15: Start Page Configuration and Administration
Changing the Default Start Page Settings
Creating a Custom Start Page Template for Your Organization
Making Changes to the Start Page after Publishing
Chapter 16: Creating a Web Site for Your Organization
Getting Started with Page Creator
Editing Web Pages in Page Creator
Publishing Your Web Pages
Tweaking Your Site
Chapter 17: Tweaking Your Apps
Creating Custom Apps Addresses
Enabling and Disabling Apps and Services
Tuning Gmail and Talk
Empowering Calendar
Securing Docs
Part V : The Part of Tens
Chapter 18: Ten Solutions to Common Problems
Oops! Errors in Google Apps
Can’t Log Into Google Apps
POP/IMAP Doesn’t Work Correctly for Gmail
Can’t Send Attachments in Gmail
Chat Disappears in Gmail
Voice Chat Doesn’t Work
Everything Looks Garbled in Calendar
Events Don’t Show Up in Calendar
Documents, Spreadsheets, or Presentations Don’t Appear in Docs Home
Documents Don’t Load Properly
Chapter 19: Ten More Google Apps for Your Business, Group, or Organization
1-800-GOOG-411
AdWords
AdSense
Google Notebook
Google Finance
Google Product Search
Google Reader
Google Maps
Google Pack
Google Translate
: Further Reading
When most people hear Google, they think of the powerful search tool with its squeaky-clean search box, colorful logo, and reliable search results. A few may know about its advertising tools, AdWords and AdSense, which generate Google’s astounding profits quarter after quarter. Google recently became even more indispensable to teams and useful to organizations when it released Google Apps, a suite of online applications that enables you to create, share, and publish documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more from any computer with an Internet connection.
If you think it may be time for your team, business, school, or organization to move out of costly, time-consuming information technology boondoggles and start using these powerful online Google applications, then Google Apps For Dummies is for you. If you’re on the fence, turn to Chapter 1, where we discuss all the advantages and disadvantages of complementing your work or academic life with Google Apps. We hope that Google Apps has piqued your interest, even if it’s only because you can save a lot of money and reduce your computing hassles.
We realize that before you can make any software solution effective within an organization, you have to meet the needs of two audiences, so we address each audience in specific parts of this book to keep your training neat and tidy:
General users: Chapters 3 through 13 show you how to use the parts of Google Apps you’ll want to use the most: The Start Page, Gmail, Chat (or Talk), Calendar, Docs, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. If you’re using the apps with a normal Google account, the information in Chapters 3 through 13 will work for you, too.
Information technology (IT) administrators: Chapter 2 shows you how to set up Google Apps, and Part IV is your step-by-step guide to administering Google Apps. (Of course, you’re free to read the rest of the book to make sure you can help users with any of the apps.)
This book is an enterprise-wide training solution for users at every level, but it can also help small businesses, groups, families, and even individual users. We guide the IT team while they set up Google Apps. We bring users up to speed and show them tips and tricks to get the most out of Google Apps. Why? Because we know how frustrating IT administrators can find setting up a new software system and then having staffers or students fail to make good use of the new tools.
We divided this book into parts and chapters, organizing the chapters into five parts (which we describe in the following sections).
Part I is the obvious place to start if you’re brand new to Google Apps. Chapter 1 provides a general overview; we kept it short because we realize that if you have the great wisdom to pick up this book in the first place, you’re probably anxious to get started. For Team Edition users and administrators, Chapter 2 runs through the process of setting up Google Apps for your team, business, school, agency, or nonprofit organization. For general users, Chapter 3 introduces your organization’s personalized Start Page and shows you how easily you can access all your Google Apps from one place.
Chapters 4 through 6 take you through the Gmail and Contacts List so that you can become proficient with Google’s communications tools. Chapter 7 takes you into Gmail Chat and Google Talk to satisfy your instant-messaging needs. Chapters 8 and 9 show you how to set up and use your Google Calendars personal calendar to keep track of your own activities and how to share that information with other people quickly.
Chapter 10 introduces you to the Google Docs Home and discusses how to create and organize your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Chapter 11 covers documents, and it has you creating and formatting documents by using Google Docs, as well as accessing documents in Google Docs that you created by using a different word processor. Chapter 12 introduces Google Spreadsheets and has you calculating, writing formulas, creating imaginative charts, and sharing your spreadsheets in the blink of an eye. Chapter 13 takes you through Google Presentations and helps you create professional Web presentations — you can even show off a bit by using Google’s highly visual and shareable Presentations app.
The chapters in this part are aimed at administrators. Chapter 14 delves into the Dashboard and helps you set up users and adjust basic domain settings. Chapter 15 walks you, step by step, through the process of setting up the Start Page — customizing it to your business, school, or organization, complete with your own logo, domain name, and look and feel. In Chapter 16, we show you the Page Creator and go through the basics of creating a simple, professional-looking Web page. Finally, Chapter 17 helps you tweak your apps even more and add controls for your users.
This part begins by giving you ten solutions to common problems in Chapter 18. Chapter 19 suggests more Google Apps and services that you may want to explore. (This final chapter is one of our favorites.)
To make using this book as easy and convenient as possible, we’ve set up a few conventions:
When we throw a new term at you, we place it in italics and define it.
We place text that you actually type in bold.
Web site addresses and file names appear in a monospace font, like this: www.dummies.com. When part of a file name or Web site address varies (depending on what your own Web site address is), we use italics to indicate a placeholder. For example, when you see http://start.yourdomain.com, you type the address with your own domain name in place of yourdomain.com.
When you need to use a menu to select a command, we use the command arrow (⇒). For example, File⇒Rename simply means that you should click the File menu and then select the Rename command.
When we show keyboard shortcuts, we place the plus sign (+) between keys. For example, to use the Cut command, press Ctrl+X. This means to press the Ctrl key and the X key at the same time.
Everyone gets distracted, starts to daydream, gets a little hungry, and quits paying attention to the lovely prose that they’re reading. In an attempt to regain your attention from that long-overdue Snickers bar, we place icons throughout this book. Each has its own sleep-preventative powers.
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Hey, users! If you’re somewhat timid with software or your computer skills, start with Chapter 3 and read through Chapter 13 to get up to speed with each app. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself and try some of the advanced instructions, as well. Trust us — you’ll find any time spent in those chapters well worth it.
We don’t want to insult your intelligence and go over basic computing skills, such as highlighting text or using a drop-down list. Instead, we focus on showing you how to use the apps to do your work.
One final thought: All you IT administrators may want to scan quickly through Parts II and III of this book. A quick skim can let you know exactly where you can send staffers, employees, or students when they have questions that you may not have time to answer on the spot.
In this part . . .
Take a moment to get to know Google Apps, the perfect complement to your business, group, family, or organization. In this part, we take you on a quick tour of the Google Apps editions, and then we help you register a new domain or point your existing one to Google’s awesome services.
If your group or organization is using Google Apps already, or if you’re a casual Gmail user, we recommend that you skip ahead and start with Chapter 3.