Google Docs & Spreadsheets Adds Readability Metrics

A bit off-subject, but I thought this was too cool to pass up.Have you tried Google Docs & Spreadsheets? I’ve been toying with it from time to time, and there’s a whole lot to like. It has good word processing and spreadsheet capabilities (with presentations coming soon), it makes document collaboration easy, you can export files to ODF, DOC, PDF, RTF, and HTML, and it’s free. If you don’t need to make highly complex documents, you could probably dump your copy of OpenOffice or MS Office and be perfectly fine with Docs & Spreadsheets, especially if they get it working off-line with Google Gears.

All of which is nice but old news. What’s cool is something I picked up from downloadsquad. File->Word Count used to be just that. Now it gives you all kinds of statistics, including readability and grade level measurements. I’m happy to announce if you’ve managed to fight your way past the 5th grade you can read this blog post.

Google adds features to its apps so quickly it’s hard to keep up. Another handy little tip - Google has been working with the Britannica people to add dictionary, thesaurus, and encyclopedia support. To see it now, while you’re in Docs & Spreadsheets, put this into the address bar:

javascript:void(INCLUDE_BRITANNICA_INTEGRATION=true);

And hit enter. You can now right-click a word and look it up.