MELANCHOLY404 TECHNOLOGY

Google Keep and Google Docs at face value have very similar intentions. The two services aim to collect what you need to document in some way. Google Keep does this in a very informal way with a UI similar to a sticky note board, while Google Docs is more a full-fledged word processor.
Sometimes, you might get started jotting something down in Google Keep and find that it’s probably better suited in the format of a longer document. Perhaps for organizational or backup purposes you just want to keep extra copies of your Google Keep stuff in Docs. Either way, check out this quick trick for transferring notes from Google Keep over to Google Docs whether you’re on web or mobile.

Transferring Notes on the Web

To transfer your notes from Google Keep to Google Docs on the web, first visit the Google Keep website. Either create a new note by clicking Add note or hover over an existing note you have underneath.

Menu options will appear when you hover over a note. Click the three vertical dots and here you’ll find Copy to Google Doc. Click this.

The note will copy quickly and then at the bottom of the screen you should see a message stating a successful copy was made. To open it in Google Docs, click Open.



Sure enough, you should see that the note is now in your Google Docs library with arguably a higher degree of professionalism and customization tools as well.

Transferring Notes on Mobile

To transfer a note from Google Keep to Google Docs on your smartphone, download the Google Keep app for iOS (which finally exists) or Android. The Google Docs app isn’t necessary. Log in with your Google account to bring up your notes.
  
Select the note you want to copy to Google Docs and on the top right, tap the vertical three dots. The menu option may not come up right away, but if you scroll all the way to the bottom you’ll see Copy to Google Docs.
  
Tap that and wait a few seconds. Then click Open to see the document.

In a recent update, Dropbox boldly went where it hasn’t gone yet. Documents in the cloud, which can actually be created, stored and shared within the app. We’ve seen a similar implementation by Google Drive for a while now, but not by Dropbox. The company calls it Dropbox Paper – a place where you can jot down ideas and share within a team while easily embedding stuff in it.

Setting Up

As you’d expect, setting up the Paper account is a breeze. You can visit the Paper website and opt in. Once done, you can start creating docs yourself. Or, take a quick tour of the sample documents to see what you can create. If you want more details, hang around. You’ve come to the right place.

Basically creating a ‘doc’ in Dropbox Paper is similar to creating a quick note with proper formatting and additional options. It’s not similar to creating an actual Word document, like in Google Docs. There aren’t as many editing options available on Paper yet, but there are still a few like Headings (H1, H2), Lists (bullet or numerical), Insert Tables and Images and even one to Insert Code.

The entire interface feels quite a bit like Medium. Clean and minimal with editing options available only when you right-click or hit the “+” symbol.

Organize and Share

One thing where Dropbox has always been excellent is organizing your files. In a recent update, you can now see your most recent files first, making the whole experience of cloud storage more intuitive. Even with Paper, Dropbox has a clean and tidy interface of folders on the left, and an ever-present Create button above the search box.

The search function works really well and this is where it’s important to name your relevant files correctly. In my brief time with a handful of documents created, I found that the search functionality was pretty good in finding documents that I needed even with a few keywords which were not part of the document name itself.

Sharing is super-easy. On the top-right, hit the Share button and start typing the name of the colleague who you want to share the document with. Once confirmed, he/she will also be able to edit your document and/or add comments, which I’ve found to be pretty useful. Especially if you’re doing a project in collaboration with people all over the country/world.

Neat but Improvements Needed

As far as taking quick notes, meeting minutes or similar work, Paper is a nice addition. Writers can’t use it fully as it doesn’t show word count anywhere, can’t be ‘Saved as’ a Word doc or any format and doesn’t support Markdown either. Coders might find it more useful, especially if they want it backed up on cloud and available on every device they work on.

For the rest, it’s still a very good alternative to the baggage of Evernote and modestness of Google Keep. If you’ve tried it already, let us know in our forum what you made of it. Or have better alternatives that you work with.