Apps
Documents, Sheets and Slides
Write documents, build spreadsheets and make presentations together, with comments, version history and templates. The files live in Drive.
Documents, Sheets and Slides are three apps that work the same way. Open them at documents.cactive.com.au, sheets.cactive.com.au and slides.cactive.com.au, or from the app switcher. Writing in Documents (pages, styles, pictures, suggestions) has its own page.
Files are in Drive
Every document, spreadsheet and presentation is a file in Drive: in your My Drive, a shared drive, or your personal space. Moving, sharing, starring, the trash and storage all work as they do for any other file, and who can do what is decided by your access to the file in Drive:
| Access | Can |
|---|---|
| Viewer | Open and read it, and download it in another format. |
| Commenter | Also comment and reply. |
| Editor | Also edit, share, name and restore versions, and make it a template. |
| Owner or manager | Also delete it forever. |
New files go in My Drive unless you make them from a folder in Drive (New → Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation or From template). They have no extension in their name: "Q3 plan", not "Q3 plan.docx".
Starting
Each app's home lists your recent files of its kind, with Shared with me, Starred and Templates in the sidebar, and a row of templates to start from: Blank first, then your organization's own, then the built-in ones. Search at the top finds files by name and by what's in them.
Built-in templates:
- Documents: meeting notes, project brief, report, letter, résumé and invoice.
- Sheets: budget, invoice, project tracker, timesheet and expense report.
- Slides: four themes (Plain, Bold, Editorial and Pitch).
Editors can make any file one of their organization's templates (File → Use as template); everyone in the organization who can open the file sees it in the gallery. Personal spaces have the built-in templates only.
Editing together
Everyone with the file open edits it at the same time and sees the others' changes as they type. The people in the file are shown in the header, each in their own colour.
Changes save as you make them: the header says Saved to Drive, Saving…, or Offline. Changes are kept on this device. While you're offline, keep working: your changes stay in the browser and are sent when you're back. A file you opened on a device before also opens there while offline.
When the space is out of storage, a file can't take new changes until there's room: it turns read-only with "Drive is full", and nothing you already typed is lost.
Every command is in the menus at the top, most have a keyboard shortcut, and Help → Search the Menus (⌥/) finds any of them by name.
Comments
Select something and choose Insert → Comment (⌘⌥M), or open the comments panel from the header. Comments stay with the text, cell, slide element or spot they're on; if what they were on is deleted, they say so. Mention someone with @ to notify them (by push and email, with a link to the comment). Anyone who can comment can resolve a thread; authors edit and delete their own comments, and editors can delete any.
Version history
File → Version History (⌘⌥⇧H) lists the file's versions by day with who made them. A new version is saved every few minutes while people edit, when the last person leaves, and every 200 changes. Select a version to see it; editors can name it (named versions are kept however many new ones follow), make a copy of it, or restore it. Restoring makes a new version with that content, so nothing is lost; anyone with the file open sees it reload.
Versions are Drive's: they're also in Drive's Details, and they count against storage.
Sharing and links
Share in the header opens the same sharing as Drive: people and teams as viewers, commenters or editors, and a link for your organization or for anyone. Someone opening an "anyone with the link" link sees the file read-only, without signing in; password-protected links ask for the password first.
Downloading and opening other formats
File → Download offers the formats the file can be saved as:
| Kind | Formats |
|---|---|
| Documents | Markdown and plain text now; Word, OpenDocument and PDF are coming. |
| Spreadsheets | CSV and TSV (the current sheet) now; Excel, OpenDocument and PDF are coming. |
| Presentations | Plain text, and a picture of the current slide (PNG), now; PowerPoint and PDF are coming. See Slides for printing notes pages and handouts. |
In Drive, opening a Markdown, CSV or TSV file offers Open in Documents or Open in Sheets: that makes a new file beside the original (which stays as it was) and opens it. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OpenDocument files will open the same way.
File → Print prints with the file's page setup.
Finding files
Search in each app, and Drive's own search, match the words inside documents, spreadsheets and presentations as well as their names, with a line showing where the words are. The text is indexed each time a version is saved, so the newest edits can take a few minutes to be found. Only files you can open are found.
Caity and AI clients
Ask Caity to "draft a project brief for the warehouse move" or "add this month's numbers to the budget sheet". AI clients get:
| Tools | Do |
|---|---|
document_create, document_read, document_edit, document_comment | Make a document from Markdown, read it as Markdown or an outline, add or replace sections and tables, and comment. |
sheet_create, sheet_read, sheet_write, sheet_add_chart | Make a spreadsheet, read and write ranges (values or formulas), and add charts. |
slides_create, slides_read, slides_add | Draft a presentation from an outline, read its slides and notes, and add slides. |
office_search, office_export | Find files by what's in them, and download them in another format. |
Reading needs drive:read and changing needs drive:write, like any Drive file, and Caity asks before it changes anything. Changes arrive in open files as if someone were typing. Your personal space is only reachable when you turn on personal spaces. See MCP tools.
API
The API is under /v1/orgs/:orgId/office for an organization's files and /v1/me/office for your personal space, with public links under /v1/hooks/office (see Documents, Sheets and Slides). Files themselves (moving, sharing, versions, the trash) are Drive's API. Limits (file size, pictures, imports, downloads per hour, writing help per day) are on Limits.