The New Google Drive Summary Google Drive(s)... 2 Google Drive on the Web... 2 Google Drive for Desktop (Mac/PC)... 2 Sync Control... 2 Mac Users... 3 PC Users... 3 Native Google Docs vs. Anything Else... 3 What are Google Docs?... 3 Google Doc Caveats... 3 Upload Settings... 4 Google Drive Navigation Panel... 4 File/Folder Options... 5 File Management... 6 Finding Files/Folders... 6 Creating Files/Folders... 6 Incoming Files/Folders... 7 Goodbye Attachments... 7 Adding Google Drive files to emails... 7 2015 SCU Technology Training 1 of 7 The New Google Drive.docx
Google Drive(s) Google Drive for Education is a cloud based storage solution for all of your documents. This allows access to any document from anywhere your have an internet connection. Additionally, your storage capacity is unlimited. You can store files as larger as 5 TB (5000 Gigabytes). There are two (2) distinctly different ways to access your SCU Google Drive. Depending on your work environment you may find one form better than another. For most of our daily work we will be using Google Drive from within our Santa Clara University mail account. But if you become disconnected from the network or have to transfer very large files into Google Drive then the desktop application may be a better solution. Google Drive on the Web To access your SCU Google Drive, log into your Santa Clara University Gmail account. 1. On the upper right locate the Google Apps Launcher icon. 2. Select the icon and locate the Google Drive icon. Google Drive for Desktop (Mac/PC) Google Drive for Desktop allows you to sync files from your desktop to your cloud based storage. 1. On the upper right of your Google Drive locate the gear icon. 2. Select the icon and choose the Download Drive option. 3. Once downloaded you will now have a dynamic folder located under your Finder è Favorites (MAC) or Documents è Favorites (PC). Sync Control Because Google Drive for Education has an unlimited store capacity you may want to control exactly which folders and files are synced rather than just stored in the cloud. For example, lets say you ve uploaded 5 TB of high res video and images from a digital camera or external hard drive. Your desktop has only a 500 GB internal hard drive. Google Drive will begin syncing your cloud storage account with your desktop computer. Once it reaches your computers limit it will stop syncing. But this will also prevent you form creating our saving any additional documents since your system no longer have enough storage to proceed. 2015 SCU Technology Training 2 of 7 The New Google Drive.docx
You will want to follow these steps if you are planning on uploading well beyond the internal storage capacity of your machine. Mac Users a. Locate the Google Drive icon in the upper right of your menu bar. b. Select the Preferences option. c. Check the box labeled Only sync some folders to this computer. d. Scroll down the list of drive folder and manually choose which ones you want on your desktop computer. e. Select Apply Changes when you re done. PC Users a. Locate the Google Drive icon from the bottom right menu option. b. Right click and choose preferences. c. Check the box labeled Only sync some folders to this computer. d. Scroll down the list of drive folder and manually choose which ones you want on your desktop computer. e. Select Apply Changes when you re done. Native Google Docs vs. Anything Else What are Google Docs? Google Docs are Google s version of a word processing, presentation, spreadsheet, and image making application. They create files that are either uniquely created within the Google Drive environment or are converted from traditional files. They can only be edited within a web browser. Google Doc Caveats 1. Google Docs do not have a robust font library. Where as MS Word for example has hundreds. Converting from Word to Google Docs may cause your document to appear malformed as the conversion may cause some fonts to be replaced by its closest neighbor. If you have documents, containing footnotes, endnotes, and/or specially formatted tables, you will lose these features when converting to Google Docs. 2. Google Docs are files that require the Google engine to open and edit the document. If you select the Google Doc file from your desktop Google Drive it will launch your default web browser. 2015 SCU Technology Training 3 of 7 The New Google Drive.docx
Upload Settings Before uploading anything to Google Drive navigate to the gear icon in the upper right of your browser. From the dropdown menu select Settings. From here you can instruct Google Drive to automatically convert any document you upload to an editable native Google Doc. Google has an Offline option, which allows editing of Google Docs while not connected to the web. To make this function properly work you ll need to be using the Chrome web browser and have downloaded the Google Drive app from the Chrome Store. Google Drive allows you to upload individual files or an entire folder of documents. In order to upload locate the New button in the upper left below the SCU & Google Drive logos. 1. Select the New button. 2. Select either File Upload or Folder Upload. 3. Navigate to the file your which to upload and select Open. 4. An upload dialog box will appear with uploading information. Google Drive Navigation Panel On the left side of your Google Drive is the navigation panel. Below the New option you should see five options for navigating to specific parts of your Google Drive. a. My Drive contains documents that are housed in your drive. If you are using Google Drive for desktop only the files located under My Drive will sync. b. Incoming (formerly Shared With Me) contains all of the documents that another individually has added you as either an editor, commenter, or given you view permissions. c. Recent contains document listed in chronological order of last edited by you. d. Starred is use to quickly retrieve important or relevant items you wish to access quickly, regardless of the last time it was edited. e. The Trash contains all of your deleted items. Just like your desktop computer the trash does not automatically remove the files form your drive. You ll need to manually delete these. Because your account has infinite storage I would recommend forgoing deleting. 2015 SCU Technology Training 4 of 7 The New Google Drive.docx
File/Folder Options You can make global decisions on your files or folders by navigation to the specific file s options menu. If you have the right click on your mouse enabled select the item and use the right mouse click to open the options menu. If you d prefer you may allow select the item and locate the options from the menu bar at the top of the list of documents. Right Click Menu Menu Bar Option a. Open with allows you to select a different application to open a specific file. For example, if you uploaded an MS Word file (.doc or.docx file) but need to have editing capabilities you can choose to the open the document using Google Docs. This will create a editable version of your Word file. b. New Folder options create a new folder for organizing your documents. c. Share option is where you will be navigated to edit sharing permissions for that document or folder. d. Get Link option will display the shareable link for that file or folder. e. Move To option allows you to move the item from folder to another. f. Add Star to items you wish to rank importance. 2015 SCU Technology Training 5 of 7 The New Google Drive.docx
g. Change Color of the file or folder icon if you visual like to find and search your documents or folders. h. Rename files that best fit with your naming convention or the naming convention of a particular collaborative group. i. View Details opens up a history of edits made to a document. j. Download any documents directly to your desktop if you don t already using syncing. k. Trash unwanted items. File Management Finding Files/Folders Some of us have developed a workflow that includes organizing your documents in neatly named and nested folder. Of course, this is not for everyone and Google knows that. That is why they have developed a robust search function that allows users to search not only by file name or date created but also File Type, Opens With and Ownership. Creating Files/Folders Under the New Tab you now have the option to create a new folder, upload a file, or upload a folder. You ll also notice that our Google Apps for Education suite has Docs, Sheets, and the Slides (formerly Presentation). Below the short list of options you will find the More option which will reveal Forms, Drawings, and any apps you ve added. 2015 SCU Technology Training 6 of 7 The New Google Drive.docx
Incoming Files/Folders Google Drive allows users to edit in real time, make comments on documents, see who is viewing a shared document, and email directly from within a document without having to return to your email inbox. You can share any file you create with an individual or with the entire @scu.edu domain. At this moment our Policy and Advisory committee does not allow for sharing documents publicly. You may however share (but not transfer ownership) to anyone with a Gmail managed account. When a file or folder is shared with you, you will find it under the Incoming tab. Because these items are only shared with you, the incoming tab allows you to view and edit while using the web interface. You cannot edit or organize the incoming folder. To file away a document using your owner folder structure you must add it to your drive. When you mouse over one of the shared items you will reveal a few edit options for the file. The first option is to download it directly to your desktop. The second option allows you to add it to your drive. The final option opens up a number of additional options previously mentioned. Items that you add to your drive and do not have ownership over may, at the owner s discretion, be removed from your drive. Additionally, if you delete an item that has been shared with you it does not remove it for the owner s drive or other s drives. Goodbye Attachments Adding Google Drive files to emails With Gmail you no longer have to attach files to your email, especially when the file exceeds the 25 MB limit. Notably, you may have already encounter problems attaching file much smaller than 25 MB because emails contain back end data called handlers which increase the total size of an email. When composing an email select the Google Drive icon from the lower menu bar. A dialog box will appear allowing you to either upload a new file or select an existing file form your Google Drive. Please note though, you must set your sharing permissions for that file to allow anyone with the link to view. If you forget, no problem. Google will notice that you are sending a file that has not been shared properly, and a dialog box will open prompting you to do so. 2015 SCU Technology Training 7 of 7 The New Google Drive.docx