Google has added a handful of cool new specialized templates to Google Docs

By Kris Wouk Published March 3, 2016

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Google Docs is undeniably useful, but firing up a new document, spreadsheet, or presentation and staring at a blank slate can be intimidating. That’s why back in September, Google introduced templates to Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides to help users get started without so much initial setup work.

Now Google has enlisted the help of five experts in their respective fields to add a new handful of templates to the service, and these were announced yesterday. Not every user will need every one of the new templates, as they’re a bit more specialized than most of the templates introduced last year, but it’s nice to know that Google intends to stretch beyond the initial few templates offered.

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For the small business owner, Google looked to Intuit, makers of the QuickBooks accounting software. This resulted in a template for Sheets for planning an annual business budget, designed to help individuals and businesses stay in control of their finances. Meanwhile, brothers Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the bestselling Made to Stick, provided a “big idea” template for Slides, aimed to help users create compelling presentations.

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Google itself even joined the party via GV, formerly Google Ventures, which knows a thing or two about what it takes for a startup to get funded. This expertise is put to good use in the “pitch” template for Slides, which uses proven presentation tactics to help entrepreneurs pitch their ideas.

Not all of the new templates are aimed at businesses and professionals, however. Google also looked to Reading Rainbow and its host, LeVar Burton, to create templates for both teachers and students, with the new “lesson plan” and “book report” templates for Docs. Google jumped in once again, taking inspiration from the Google Science Fair to create a template for Slides meant for, yes, science fairs.

Over the past few years, Google Docs hasn’t exactly stagnated, but it hasn’t seen the steady trickle of updates many other Google products and services get. As of last year, however, that seems to be changing. With these new templates and the new voice typing function introduced last month, it seems Google has bigger things planned for Docs.

The new templates are all available in Docs, Sheets, and Slides now. To get started, just head over to Google Docs.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…

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As a writer of a certain age, I've lived a lot of life in Google Docs. It's where my first drafts go, but it's also where my crazy ideas, unhinged brainstorming, and research dumps go.
There’s so many conveniences about Google Docs that make it my go-to for word processing, but let’s be honest: It’s still fairly barebones, especially when it comes to organizing and managing different files within Google Drive. But this new feature makes all of that much easier, keeping it all contained all within Docs itself.
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The idea is simple: It lets you create multiple documents within a single Docs file. Create as many “tabs” or separate documents as a single project might need, and switch between them extremely fast. That accessibility to them is really where the gold is. No more switching between different browser tabs.
It’s even more handy on mobile, of course, where switching applications or tabs is even more cumbersome. Here, you’ll find Document Tabs hovering just at the bottom of the screen with some simple arrows to flip between your different tabs. All we need now is a simple gesture to be added to flip between them even more seamlessly.
Document Tabs takes the place of the old outlining system, which would grab headers and automatically create a table of contents around them. I used this frequently, but it was pretty finicky. More than that, it resulted in overly long documents that I still found myself scrolling through.
Document Tabs is a really elegant solution to that problem. Whether it’s segmenting chapters in a book, multiple aspects of a project, or even just different parts of an article, it’s already become an extremely useful outlining and productivity tool for me.
It even had a pretty clean way of converting the tabs when you need to export. All the tabs do is combine down into one document, but they’re sectioned off with titles and some basic formatting. That’s not going to be ideal in every situation, of course, so it’s something to keep in mind if you need to export and share it with someone outside of Docs.
At the very least, though, it’s worth trying out. And if you’re a Google Docs fiend like I am, I have a feeling you’ll get quite a lot out of it.