Google Docs pulls a Slack, adds support for inline emoji in documents 

WhatsApp isn’t the only big tech service exhibiting a recent fondness for emoji; Google Docs also added emoji reactions in April this year. Despite this improvement, including emoji is still quite a chore. Google hopes to fix this now with support for inline emoji in the document’s text.

Google Docs supports emoji in the text, but you have to find the characters you want using the emoji section in keyboard apps on Android or the Windows emoji picker on desktop (accessible by using Win+full stop). This is often time-consuming and derails your train of thought.

In a new update, Google lets you add emoji inline with text in one of two new ways. You can precede the emoji’s name with “@” if you know what it is called. A drop-down list appears based on the keywords you entered, and you can pick the most appropriate emoji. So, you can type in “@cat” and select the black cat emoji from the list. Avid Docs users would know the “@” is also used to precede names of people, documents, contacts, links, etc., you want to tag in the document.

If you type “@:” or just “:” on Docs, you can open the drop-down list without typing a description or name of the emoji. You can also revert to the old-fashioned emoji picker with its dedicated search bar — just hit the right arrow in the upper right corner of the drop-down list. Interestingly, “@:” worked as intended in our testing, but “:” didn’t open the drop-down. So, make sure you try both approaches.

Google says the change is rolling out now and should show up for every Docs user by September 27, irrespective of their account type. The implementation resembles inline emoji on Slack, and we can confirm it’s a massive time-saver once you get used to it.

( Details and picture courtesy from Source, the content is auto-generated from RSS feed.)

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