These 6 Google Docs add-ons level up my daily productivity – and they’re all free

I exploit Google Docs day by day and for varied writing features. Over time, I’ve used it to place in writing novels, scripts, tech articles, evaluations, and practically each little factor in between. To make Google Docs work efficiently for me, I’ve sometimes wanted to depend on an add-on or two.

The add-on market for Google Docs consists of a wide range of apps that add new choices and a broad differ of capabilities, even creating phrase clouds from paperwork (which I created above — from this very article — using Word Cloud Generator). A lot of these add-ons are associated to third-party suppliers, nevertheless some are devoted solely to extending the attribute set of Google Docs.

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I want to highlight quite a lot of add-ons I’ve used over time, each of which can provide help to transform additional ingenious and/or productive.

Do remember that the whole add-ons below are free of worth and will likely be found by opening a Google doc, clicking Extensions, after which clicking Add-Ons > Get Add-Ons.

With that in ideas, let’s get to the extensions.

1. Doc Builder

Should you occur to ceaselessly re-use snippets of textual content material, Doc Builder is a ought to. Instead of typing the similar phrases, paragraphs, and completely different bits into associated paperwork, all you could do is open Doc Builder, select the snippet you want to add, and the textual content material appears routinely in your doc.

The trick with Doc Builder is that it’s worthwhile to create your snippets as common Google Paperwork. For example, you might want to create a Drive folder named SNIPPETS and add all the snippets (as separate paperwork) into that folder. 

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Should you occur to pony up for the paid mannequin, you get additional choices, much like doc merge, limitless merge codes, on-the-fly snippet creations, folders, and better effectivity. For a lot of clients, the free mannequin could be high-quality.

Arrange Doc Builder from the Google Workspace Market.

2. Consistency Checker

What variety of events have you ever ever gone by means of a doc, solely to go looking out widespread typos, spelling variations, fully completely different abbreviations for the same phrase, and completely different inconsistencies? Should you occur to’re searching for to carry these paperwork fixed, and don’t on a regular basis have top-of-the-line eye for such points, then the Consistency Checker is the add-on for you.

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After placing in Consistency Checker, you open the add-on and click on on Scan. For example, whereas scripting this piece, Consistency Checker found I had written every add on and add-on, along with wide range and wide-range. The one issue Consistency Checker wouldn’t do is routinely restore the problems. You’ll ought to bear the doc and restore them manually.

Arrange Consistency Checker from the Google Workspace Market.

3. Desk of Contents

In case your paperwork typically require a desk of contents (TOC), this add-on will stop some time. This add-on scans your doc for headings and subheadings after which creates a TOC throughout the sidebar which you can then use inside your doc. You presumably can configure the heading amount format and the present unit stage, along with select the add-on to on a regular basis open for the doc you may be working with. And that’s nearly all this add-on does — however it does it properly.

Arrange Table of Contents from the Google Workspace Market.

4. Textual content material Cleaner

This handy little add-on goes by means of your paperwork and cleans them up. With it, you’ll be capable of take away hyperlinks and underlining, take away line breaks, take away paragraph breaks, restore laborious line breaks in plain textual content material, take away quite a lot of areas, take away tabs, and smarten quotes. You might as effectively configure Textual content material Cleaner to guard certain formatting (much like daring, italics, underlining, strikethrough, and good quotes). I’ve wanted to depend upon this add-on many events — when submitting manuscripts — to remove quite a lot of areas, smarten quotes, and shield italics. It has been a game-changer for me.

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Arrange Text Cleaner from the Google Workspace Market.

5. OneLook Thesaurus

Usually, my vocabulary is pretty secure. Nonetheless, I do have a pet peeve that normally has me counting on the OneLook Thesaurus add-on — repeated phrases. In my fiction-writing, I don’t choose to repeat phrases in sentences or paragraphs and may go to good lengths to steer clear of it. With OneLook Thesaurus, I can highlight a phrase for which I desire a synonym, click on on Extensions > OneLook Thesaurus > Synonyms, and the sidebar will open with all the possibilities I can select from. 

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This add-on may allow you to find triggers, rhymes, full, adjectives, nouns, quotes, lyrics, and proverbs. The one issue missing from OneLook Thesaurus is antonyms, nevertheless which may be asking a bit lots for a free piece of software program program.

Arrange OneLook Thesaurus from the Google Workspace Market.

6. Creator’s Highlighter

This add-on is normally a large help for authors. In case you could have particular phrases you overuse, you’ll be capable of create a spreadsheet of those phrases, configure the add-on to utilize that spreadsheet, after which run the add-on in direction of your doc. You’ll then uncover these overused phrases highlighted in your doc, the place you’ll be capable of then bear them and see how lots you overused these phrases. You might as effectively use this add-on to seek out character names, names of areas, cliches, filler phrases, swear phrases, and additional. I’ll admit that this add-on does have just a little little bit of a learning curve, nevertheless after you could have a very really feel for the way in which it really works, Creator’s Highlighter shortly turns into an absolute ought to.

Arrange the Writer’s Highlighter from the Google Workspace Market.

Anybody amongst these add-ons could assist make you a additional ingenious and productive creator inside Google Docs. I’ve used all of these over time and should attest that they work properly and have helped me improve quite a lot of manuscripts sooner than they’re despatched to the author for edits.