Google Drawings isn’t the most popular of Google’s productivity tools. Instead, Docs, Sheets and Slides are the mainstays. You can click “New” to open the Google Drive homepage. If you hit “More”, you will find many more options. We have seen the value of Google Forms. It’s now time to take in the versatility of Google Drawings.
Google Drawings: Cool Things You Can Do
Google Drawings is one of the most recent Google Drive tools. This is not an image editor like MS Paint but a collaborative real-time application. It’s a simple online whiteboard. However, it can do much more at its most advanced. Let’s take a look at some of its creative uses. It can be used for collaborative Post-It notes Google Drawings can also be used to create a whiteboard where you can post-it notes. You can create your own and share your thoughts with others by using a URL. This virtual Post-It was created using shapes and Google Fonts. It took only 5 minutes to create the note. A quick Google Drawings board sharing and Hangouts chat are great options for when you cannot all be there at once. Any team member can comment and add other Post-It notes on the virtual office wall.
1. Make Your Own Graphic Organizers
Diagrams used to organize information visually are called graphic organizers. These are also concept maps, entity relationships charts, or mind maps. A graphic organizer can give you a bird’s eye view of your thoughts. A spider diagram is helpful to group ideas. A flow chart can help sequence a process. A fishbone diagram can show cause and effect. To take a shortcut (e.g. You can either use a flowchart template or make your own. Google Drawings offers a variety of shapes, colours and fonts that will help you quickly create unique spatial structures. This simple spider diagram illustrates the shortcuts available to create a graphic organizer.
2. Create an infographic
One of our favorite Google Drawing hacks is to use Google Drawings to create infographics. So you’re halfway to your goal if you have an idea and data. To make an infographic more impactful, you can add shapes, images, text and tables to support these two essential ingredients. To create a dynamic experience, hyperlink your data with external resources. To get started: Google Drawings has Snap To Grid and Snapchat to Guides. This allows you to align objects to the Google Drawing grid and then draw them at the same size using more precision. Go to View Snap to Grids Guides. This is a quick video to show you how to create your infographics with Google Drawings.
3. Create custom graphics for Google Docs and Sheets
This is probably the most apparent use for Google Drawings. It is the most accessible tool to insert custom graphics directly into Google Drive documents via Web Clipboard. These are some of the things you can do.
Make your clipart library with reusable clipart. Make your own unique vector picture bullets. Create a digital signature to customize your email.
Copying a drawing to another file will create a copy of it. Edits to one or both the original and the copy are not always applicable to the other.
4. Screen Design with Wireframes
Wireframes can be used to create blueprints for any screen design. They are simple shapes that don’t require any colour or frills. These help designers focus on the content layout or how a prototype design will work. Google Drawings is the best for simplicity, collaboration, accessibility and ease of use. Google Drawings makes it easy to create your own wireframing kits. You can create a wireframing tool that includes all the essential elements you need to start any design. For quick access to any new project, leave the elements in the gutter (the area next to the canvas).
A Canvas for your Ideas
Exploring the options available is half the fun, just like any other drawing tool. Google Drive’s drawing service, often overlooked, could be your favorite creative web app. It can help you explain multi-step processes and brainstorm collaboratively. Microsoft Visio may be more beneficial for complex charting tasks, but Google Drawings excels at what it does best, real-time collaboration at a fantastic price: free. So what’s not love about it?
