Google updated its native Google Docs for Android application, giving users the ability to drop photos taken from their Android device directly into a Google document. Meanwhile, the Android-compatible Google+ social networking service now enables sharing of web-pages from its “+1” button.

In April, Google launched the Google Docs application for Android with a nifty feature that lets users turn photos with text into documents that may be edited from smartphones. The original version of the app let users tap a button to create a new document from a photo, or select the camera icon from the widget. The document then would appear in the documents list after a picture is snapped.
 

Google Docs' new Web Clipboard upload option

With the new Docs for Android bump, users can now tap the camera icon from the Docs widget icon on their Android phone, shoot a photo, and then select "send to Web Clipboard" and press "OK" (see image above). Then users can open any Google document from their computer, click the Web Clipboard icon, and pick the item to paste into their document (see image below).

Pasting the uploaded image into a Google document

Google also improved the app so users can open documents with any compatible viewer application, or send a document as an attachment through email or another app on their phone. The idea is that not only can users create, edit and access documents from their mobile phone, but they can augment the documents with photos, then save them in Google's cloud computing system — via which they can be accessed from desktop computers. 

While the initial Docs app was available only in English, the improved Docs app is available in 45 additional languages. As before, users can also convert existing photos from their Android phone by sharing them with the Google Docs app.

Google+ can now share web-pages from fast-spreading +1 button

In other Google app news this week, the Android-compatible Google+ social networking service now lets users share web-pages by clicking the Google +1 button. Similar to the Facebook "Like" button, the +1 button has found its way onto over a million websites since it launched in June, and gets more than four billion daily views, double from last month, according to Google.

New sharing window launched from the blue Google+ "+1" button
(Click to enlarge)

Google+ users who click a +1 button will be able to blast the URL of a web page or ad to anyone within their Google+ Circles. When users click the +1 button to share, they will see snippets of links, images and descriptions in the "sharebox," similar to what they would see when they share content in Google+. Publishers will be able to customize their +snippets when these features roll out over the next week worldwide.

Other recent improvements to Google+ include theindexing Google+ posts on Google.com, the launch of Google Hangouts video chat sessions from YouTube, and new sharing functionality between Google+ and Gmail's people widget. (A longer version of the Google+ story may be found on eWEEK.)

 Clint Boulton is a writer for eWEEK.

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