FTT - How to make Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive Available Offline

How To Make

 Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive 

Available Offline In 3 Easy Steps

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

Ben Franklin said there were only two things certain in life: death and taxes. I would add a third certainty to that list. The internet will go down at some point and you will lose connectivity.

With these uncertain times, it is good to have a  plan for technology use when the wifi is not working. I have presented at technology conferences and the wifi has gone down! I typically will save my slide decks as a pdf just in case.

You may be in a situation where you are in the middle of a multi-day project with a classroom full of students and suddenly there is no internet connection. This is one of those times when your students are watching you closely. Are you going to panic? Will you declare the day a total waste?  Are you going to have extra lesson plans just in case?

Fortunately, Google docs, sheets, and slides can easily be accessed offline.  This allows both you and your students to continue working on Google docs, sheets, slides, and access your drive even without the internet. When your device does connect, all of the work that you did offline with sync and it will be like the whole ordeal never happened.

You do need to take some initial steps while you are connected in order to enable offline editing. This is well worth doing as a precautionary measure. It will only take 2 minutes. You will be glad you did!

Enable Offline Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Drive In 3 Easy Steps!

1. Make sure you are using Google Chrome! This will only work in Chrome. If you have students using their own computers, make sure they have Chrome loaded on their machine.

2. Install the Google docs offline extension. You can get to it by clicking here

Ok. Now you are all set! If you are offline, or want to enable for offline use, launch Chrome and go to your Google drive settings. Not sure how to get there?  Click on the gear in Google drive or go to drive.google.com/drive/settings. Check the box that says “Create, open and edit your recent Google docs, sheets, and slides files on this device while offline”. 

3. Ok. Now you are all set! If you are offline, or want to enable for offline use, launch Chrome and go to your Google drive settings. Not sure how to get there?  Click on the gear in Google drive or go to drive.google.com/drive/settings. Check the box that says “Create, open and edit your recent Google docs, sheets, and slides files on this device while offline”.

*If you have a specific file that you want to make sure is available offline, you can go to File and click Make Available Offline.

Want some help figuring this out?

Let us know!