Google has recently added a new feature to the web version of its popular email service, Gmail. Now, Gmail allows users to edit Microsoft Office documents sent as attachments. While Microsoft is increasing its popularity in the cloud era, Google is trying to cut the ground from under the feet.
However, this does seem to be a major update, as the new feature is part of Google’s strategy to make it more universal cloud service and make it a tool dedicated to companies. The new feature adds an icon to edit Google Drive to Gmail attachments “Edit with Google Docs”. By clicking on it, the Office files are automatically converted to Google Docs format Sheets or Slides.
By clicking on the “edit” option on an attachment from an Office file, it can convert the file to the dedicated format to save it to Google Drive and enable active collaboration and sharing as soon as you want. Google also increased the amount of supported Office formats, so that the import process is facilitated. The list includes now 15 less-used Office formats, among which we find such .pps and .ppsx.