Google Docs celebrates 15 years of shared documents that 3 billion people can access

This week marked 15 years since the launch of Google Docs, the shared document tool for the Google ecosystem that is currently part of the Workspace suite, which together are used by more than 3 billion people around the world.

Google originally launched its Docs tool in October 2006, based on the online word processor Writely, which had seen the light of day only a year earlier and had been integrated into the online services offered by the American company.

“Everyone told us it was crazy trying to give people a way to access their documents from anywhere, let alone share documents instantly or collaborate online through their browser,” the company claimed in 2006.

Google Docs is now integrated into the company’s ecosystem of online services, which are used by 3 billion people around the world. Since last year it has been a tool of Google Worskpace, a new name for what used to be Google Suite.

Coinciding with Google Docs’ 15th anniversary, Google recalled in a statement some of the most notable milestones of its Docs platform in this decade and a half of history.

In 2010, Docs received its first major update since its launch, which added the ability to see how other users were editing and writing to shared documents, as well as improved import capabilities.

Google also revealed curiosities like that internally, the Google Docs team knows “widgets” by the names of breakfast. The yellow messages at the top are called “butter,” the dialogs coming out from the bottom are “toast” and the red error message is “ketchup.”

The company, which recently added features such as suggestions and smart responses through artificial intelligence, has combined tricks like pressing the “+” button on the right side to add accessories, with editing recommendations. Meanwhile, the smart board feature, added in May, allows people to be mentioned, lists added, and templates used.

Looking at Docs, Google promised that users would soon start receiving “more inclusive language” suggestions when writing and editing documents.