Google offers the facility to view your documents offline via the Google Docs app in the Chrome App store (easily found by launching Chrome and clicking on the Web Store icon) but this is restricted to your more recent creations and doesn’t allow editing. A more traditional way around this problem is to download the files you wish to work on and then open them in an office suite such as Microsoft Office or the free LibreOffice (www.libreoffice.org). Google Docs supports an excellent range of formats in its download section, most of which LibreOffice handles very well. If you’re working on an iPad then emailing the documents to the device and then opening them with Pages is probably the best, if not most elegant, solution. Android tablet owners can use similar methods with apps like QuickOffice Pro or Kingsoft Office to take their work on the road. It’s certainly not ideal and hopefully Google will address the issue soon.
To find the Google Docs app, launch the Chrome browser (you can download it from chrome.google.com). You’ll see an icon called Chrome Web Store (click on Apps at the bottom if you can’t see it). Click on it then search for Google Docs.
To set up offline viewing click on the settings icon on the right of the Google Docs home screen (the gear icon) then select ‘Set up Docs offline’. Click the ‘Allow offline docs’ button and your latest documents will be stored locally.
If you want to edit or continue to work on your documents then you’ll need to download them to your hard drive. From the file menu select ‘Download as’, and choose whichever format best suits your Office Suite.
For tablet users one solution is sending your documents via email. Go to the file menu then select ‘Email as Attachment’. Just remember to open them on your tablet before you leave a Wi-Fi area to ensure you have them stored locally.
