We have a variety of online collaboration tools in the WordPress community. For example, while collaborating together on copy, proposals, documentation or articles, we use Google Docs and Sheets.
This video explains how Google Docs Drive works in an easy way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRqUE6IHTEA
A Google account. This could be one you use in other environments or you could set up a new account to use just for the WordPress environment. The account’s username and profile picture will be displayed on documents you comment on and this may appear in search engines. For some contributors they find it more suitable to have a specific Google account just for the project, particularly if their other Google account is part of their work or organisational tools.
If you have a Gmail email account, this is also your Google account.
To create a new Google account
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Visit https://google.com
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Click on the sign-in option, usually found in the top right hand corner of the browser window.
- You can also create an account following the button
- You will need to enter your First Name and Last name including an unique username with password which will also be the Gmail address for that account.
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You can sign into your account In the top right corner of a Google browser window, enter your username and your password.
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You can also sign-out of the Google account this way.
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You can set a recovery email address and phone number to help you if you forget your password or if you want to update privacy settings in the future.
You can check the personal information your account shares in settings.
Do I need to stay logged into the Google account I use to collaborate in the WordPress project?
You can log out when you are not collaborating. You can also change accounts back to a work or another Google account you use.
Google Docs is an online wordprocessor which we use in the WordPress community to collaborate on materials. You will be able to use it for free to collaborate in real time or asynchronously.
You can use a desktop, laptop, Android and Apple devices. For mobile devices you will need to download the app from your relevant store.
It is good practice to sign-in to a document before you start adding information or comments to it as WordPress is a community-based, collaborative project.
If you have multiple Google accounts, this is also a way of checking you are logged into the document with the right account you want to use.
Signing in helps other collaborators know who has added a comment to be able to follow-up with you or to include your work in acknowledgements.
A team may have its own guidelines or good practice on how to contribute to shared documents. For example, in most teams, contributors are asked to add comments in ‘suggestion mode’. To do this, highlight the text you are suggesting for change, click on the comment box and add your idea.
In the top right of the document window, you can check the mode it has been set to: ‘Suggesting’, ‘Editing’ or ‘Viewing’. Most times, you will need to be in ‘suggesting mode’ and collaborate by adding comments. When documents are being finalised for publication, they may be changed by a team rep or final editor to ‘editing’ mode. Check with a task owner or a team rep if you are unsure if further comments should still be added.
Also, make sure that you do not accept changes and/or resolve comments if you are not one of the task leads. In case you accidentally do either of these, you can revert the changes by clicking on the “All changes saved in Drive” (or “See new changes”) link next to the toolbar below the title of the document, which will open the version history and you’ll be able to restore the selected previous version. (screenshot needed)
- Navigate to the top-right corner of the document’s toolbar, just below the ‘Share’ button.
- Under the options in the drop-down menu, choose the middle option ‘Suggesting’.
- To check if you are using the right mode, just check which icon appears in the toolbar. When suggestion mode is activated, the pen icon seen in the previous two screenshots will be replaced with the comment box & pen icon (see screenshot below).
Writing in suggestion mode looks a little bit different than with regular editing. Note also the comment box which appears to the right.
To facilitate collaboration, Google Docs even shows you other people working in the document and their position inside the document, as well as in the comment box related to a particular comment.
When you add a comment in suggestion mode, the ‘document owner’ will usually receive an email notification. Others can add replies or make further suggestions.
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Highlight the text
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Click ‘insert a comment’ in the toolbar on a computer or the + insert sign and choose ‘comment’ if you are using the Google Docs app. Additionally, on a computer, you can also insert comments by right-clicking with your mouse (or using the ctrl key together with your touchpad), which opens some editing options.
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Type the comment into the box and click on return when finished
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The comment will be added under your username
Check with your team where images should be stored and the sizes for use. Images should have permissions for use and teams may have guidelines for where these should be stored.
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Open the Google Doc
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Click ‘Insert’ in the toolbar below the document’s title, then in the dropdown menu hover over the first option ‘Image’ and different options for inserting images will appear to the right of the dropdown menu. Choose the image from your device, the web, Drive, a photo management application (e.g. Photos for Mac) or your camera. This will add the image to your document.
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To insert an .gif file, click ‘By URL’ and add the full web address.
- Additionally, images can also be inserted by dragging and dropping from a folder on your computer, or by copying them and pasting them in the document.