Our Senior Technology Editor, told me this morning that he always uses some horrible workaround in order to access Docs quickly. It’s always slow, but science has finally achieved what we thought was impossible: a fast and simple way to create a new Google document whenever you need it. There are also hacks to get a blank Google spreadsheet, start a video conference, and much more.
You can create a new Google document by typing ” docs.new”. It works on any browser because “.new” is the equivalent of “.com”. Try these:
- Docs.new To open a blank Google Doc Document
- sheets.new How to open a Google Sheets blank spreadsheet
- Meet.new To start a video conference with yourself on Google Meet. (It provides a link that you can copy and invite others)
- Create an event on your Google Calendar using cal.new
- form.new Create a new Google Form
- slides.new How to create a slideshow in Google Slides
You can choose which account to open a document from if you have multiple accounts logged in: docs.new/3 opens a new Google Doc in your third account. This is the account that appears with “/u/2”, in the URL of a Google Docs page. Since those pages start counting at zero, it can be confusing. Once you know which one is which, create a bookmark for the shortcut that you want to have even more convenient access to.
By the way, these shortcuts are not limited to Google products. has a list of all the shortcuts here. Microsoft’s online services are also included. word.new is for creating a Word document. Excel.new creates a spreadsheet. photoshop.new creates a brand new image with Adobe Photoshop. There are also a number of shortcuts for coding, such as js.new which creates a Javascript project within CodeSandbox.
