As we all know, Google Drive is the cloud file storage system created by Google which was formerly called Google Docs. You can create and edit all the office files (docs, sheets, and slides) you have saved in Google Drive.
But, when you add a file from the local drive you just had the option to view and download it. Google has made editing possible with the help of a Chrome extension. Let us look into the features of this Chrome extension.
What is “Office Editing for Docs, Sheets & Slides” extension?
This is an extension made available by Google so that the Office Compatibility Mode (OCM) will be applied to those files which are uploaded from the local computer drive. Depending on the file extension the editor also will be different.
This Chrome extension supports .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, and .pptx extensions. So you can edit files with these extensions directly from Google Drive, you do not need to have Office software installed on the system. To enable the OCM extension follow the below given steps:-
- Go to Chrome web store and search for the extension “Office Editing for Docs, Sheets & Slides”.
- Click on “Add to Chrome” and the extension will be installed in Google Chrome. Make sure that the installed Google Chrome is updated version.
- Log into Google drive and click on “New” button. You will get the option for “File Upload”.
- Click on that and select the file which you want to upload to Google drive. Once the file is uploaded, you can double click on the file and the file opens up with editing option.
If you do not have this extension enabled, you cannot edit the file from Google Drive. There is another advantage of using this extension. You can easily share the file, and your team can work on the same file simultaneously.
Before you had to send the file to all your team members and after editing, they had to send the files back. Office Compatibility Mode relieves you from that hassle and permits easy file sharing. After your team members are done with editing, you can save the file back to the original Office format.
Points to remember: You can use this extension only in Chrome browser. The files which were created using the Google docs, sheets and slide will not be having this facility since Google Drive has in-built software for that.
Google will roll out this facility gradually to all Google Drive users, as of now some classic version of Google Drive will not support this facility.
