Creating a new Google Doc from a Bookmark (or Quick Search Box)

For a long time now (pretty much as long as I’ve been at Google) I’ve been a heavy user of Google Docs. One of my favorite tricks is that I have a bookmark to create a new document. I click the bookmark and was taken to a brand new document. This is a great little time saver, so add: https://docs.google.com/MiscCommands?command=newdoc&redirectToDocument=true, if you want to do the same.

Yesterday, Google released an update to the Google Docs editor. If you haven’t had a chance to use it yet, I’d encourage you to give it a shot. The new real-time collaboration and commenting systems make collaborative document-creation so much better. Well, my bookmark broke. In truth, it didn’t break, it just created a document using the old editor. But what if you want the new hotness?

Add the following to your bookmarks: https://docs.google.com/document. And voila!

Creating a new Google Doc from Quick Search Box

The other thing I wanted to do was to make this accessible without being in the browser. So I thought of how I could Quick Search Box to do this. QSB can index bookmarks from Firefox and Safari, but it can’t index Google Chrome bookmarks just yet (go figure). So, I fired up Safari, added a bookmark, and voila. Just one day later, an update to QSB came out that lets it index Chrome and Chromium bookmarks. This intermediate step is no longer required. Huzzah.

Creating a new Google Doc with Quick Search Box
New Google Doc from QSB

Hope this helps you save a little bit of time in your day.