Google Workspace — the product formerly known as G Suite — is getting a number of new Microsoft Office integration features. The biggest of these is the ability for users to open and edit Office files directly from a Gmail attachment.
Google also announced today, December 10, a new Macro Conversion add-on meant to help users migrate macros from Excel to Sheets.
Google also announced a couple of additional Workspace features today, including mixed page orientation support in Docs and Microsoft Word files, and support for inserting images behind text and watermarks (which will be available next year sometime).
Google already added native support for Microsoft Office documents to the web-based versions of Docs, Sheets and Slides in April 2019. It added this same capability to its mobile versions of its apps in September this year.
The vice president and general manager of Google Workspace is former Microsoft exec Javier Soltero. In October, Google said it had more than six million business customers for G Suite/Google Workspace. Google is working to position Workspace to appeal to remote workers, frontline workers and enterprises who need to collaborate inside their companies and with outside partners — very similar to how Microsoft positions Microsoft 365/Office 365.
