Good News – Google Docs recently got a great new facelift, adding dozens of new features and functionality. They’re improved absolutely everything, from searching your documents, to new uploading features. Essential features I’ve been waiting for years for them to add are finally here as well, like page breaks, extra fonts, drag-and-drop image insertion and revision history. In Speadsheets, Google’s version of Microsoft’s Excel, finally adds pivot tables, which consultants and business people on the go will love using to quickly analyze their data. Overall, this is a huge upgrade for Google’s online document suite of products, which had definitely begun to show their age. For the full list of features Google is adding and to learn how to activate the latest version of Google Docs, click on through to our full coverage.

Overall/Layout

– More streamlined document sharing interface

– Easier to find files with added search operators

– Convert files at any time without actually going into the file first

– Upload entire folders or drag-and-drop files to your documents list

– Collapsible discussions, improved email notifications, and a more detailed discussion pane

Documents

– See page breaks in big docs with Pagination

– Improved revision history

– New fonts

– Image drag and drop images from Chrome, Firefox, or Safari

– Auto linking text in documents

– Real-time collaborative highlighting in documents – See what other are doing

– Translate Docs into 53 supported languages

Spreadsheets

– Addition of Pivot Tables

– See revision history

– Upload images to spreadsheets from your Picasa Web Albums

– Print spreadsheets as PDFs or export to HTML. There are also more print sizes

– Create drop-down lists in individual cells

– Grid-free printing

Mobile

– Updated Google Docs for Android app

– Editing in 45 languages

– Edit and create text documents

Cloud Connect/Print

– Open Google Docs files directly in Microsoft Office (if you kept the files in native Office Format and didn’t convert them to a Google format)

– Print your documents to a printer connected to Google Cloud Print from your smartphone

…and so many more features we couldn’t possibly list them all

What’s most immediately noticeable is the new look of Google Docs. It’s much cleaner, which should make finde=ing your content easier. They have hidden most of the functionality behind the “Actions” “Narrow by” and “Sort” tabs towards the top of your documents list and just overall made the site look…cleaner. I’ve been trying to come up with a better word than cleaner, but it fits “and if it ain’t broke…”

Google will start rolling out the new layout and features in following days, but to try it out now there should be a “Try the new look” option in the Google Docs Settings (click on the little gear in the far upper right corner of the screen).

Bad news – I could only try out the new features immediately via my personal Google account. When I switched over to my Google Apps account, the feature was missing. So if you only have a Google Apps account for your business, you will have to wait to see all the goodness when the changes are permanent. It could just be me, so fire up your Google or Google Apps Documents and try out the new features and let us know what you think in the comments section.