Organizing Your Google Docs with Tabs, Dropdowns, and Tables

Google Docs is a great way to create documentation or collaborate on projects because of its user-friendly interface and real-time collaboration features. However, as your documents grow in complexity, organizing them efficiently can become challenging. Luckily for us, Google Docs offers tabs, dropdowns, and tables to streamline organization.

Tabs

Thanks to a presentation by Eric Griffith, our tech department has created a Daily Actions Items document which is a journal of what we accomplished in a day. It includes steps and actions we took. Now we can go back and see when something was done and also how we did it. It has been a godsend on streamlining our department, keeping everyone on the same page even if we are not working in the same area. However, everything in one document has a dark side.

The first year we did it, the document became almost unbearable to use by the end of the school year due to Google Docs falling over with such a large document. For the next year we divided the document into two 6 month documents, which made the performance better but searching worse. This year we’re using tabs for each month.

What are Tabs?

Tabs in Google Docs are a way to organize content within a document, allowing you to separate and switch between different sections easily. This method functions similarly to spreadsheet tabs, but within a Google Doc, enabling you to have distinct areas for various topics or time periods without creating multiple files. Documents automatically get a Tab 1 when they are created.

To create a tab, click the +. To rename a tab, double-click on the current tab and replace the text. Tabs can be re-arranged by dragging. Tabs can also be decorated with an emoji.

Each tab is like its own document, but things like searching looks across all of the tabs.

Dropdowns

Dropdowns can be used to enter information from a selection of items. For example, you could have a drop down with the status of a project just as Not Started, In Progress, Waiting On, and Completed. This allows team members to quickly update the status of a task without manually typing everything out, ensuring consistency in entries and making it easier to manage and track progress over time.

How to Create and Use a Dropdown

To create a drop down menu, go to the Insert menu and select Dropdown. A dialog box will appear, allowing you to customize your dropdown options. You can add, remove, or rename options according to your needs by typing in the text boxes provided. Once you have configured your dropdown, you can use it in your document by typing the @. You will get a list of items you can insert, and one of them will be your new dropdown menu.

Pinning the Header of Tables

Tables are a great way of managing information, but if they contain a lot of data, you can lose the header row when scrolling. However, you can pin the header so it will always appear above your data as your scroll.

Mouse over the row you want to pin, and on the left side will be a pin icon. Click it and the header row will then be pinned.