Selecting multiple blocks of text in Google Drive.
The Google Workspace team is releasing some solid productivity updates to Google Drive.
You can now select multiple blocks of text at once in the document editor for quick editing. This is a feature that Microsoft Word has had for a while and allows you to hold down the Ctrl key, highlight several blocks of text, and apply a style. Unfortunately, Google Docs does not use any obvious shortcut keys. According to the updated shortcut page, you will need at least four fingers to do this. It’s Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Left / Right Arrow in Windows, or Ctrl + Cmd + Shift + Left / Right Arrow on a Mac. From here, Google says you should “use [the] left / right arrow to move to a separate section of text that you also want to select “.
The next simple addition is the keyboard shortcuts for copying / pasting into the Google Drive file browser. Copying and pasting text editors has always been possible, but you can now do this in your Drive web file manager, which was not possible before. It’s weird that Google took so long to implement this feature, but there’s a lot of abstraction between you and the Google Drive JavaScript application. If you copy a document from Google Docs, you’re not actually copying a file to the clipboard because the file is on the Internet. You are moving organization links with a clipboard to which JavaScript does not even have read access. You’ve also always been able to install the Drive Sync app and manage files using your operating system’s file manager, but now the web version has better functionality.
Both features are being implemented now. Multiple text selection is expected to reach everyone in about 15 days, and the copy and paste Drive feature will take approximately one month.
Google Drive listing image