[4] An editor's position is highlighted with an editor-specific color and cursor, and a permissions system regulates what users can do.

Google Docs originated from Writely, a web-based word processor created by the software company Upstartle and launched in August 2005.

[6][7] It began as an experiment by programmers Sam Schillace, Steve Newman, and Claudia Carpenter, trying out the then-new Ajax technology and the "contentEditable" HTML feature.

[13] In June 2012, Google acquired Quickoffice, a freeware proprietary productivity suite for mobile devices.

[15] In February 2019, Google announced grammar suggestions in Docs, expanding their spell check using machine translation techniques to help catch tricky grammatical errors.

In June 2014, Google rolled out a dedicated website homepage for Docs that contains only files created with the service.

[24] To resolve concurrent edits from different users, Google Docs uses an operational transformation method based on the Jupiter algorithm, where the document is stored as a list of changes.

The revision history allows users to see the additions made to a document, with each author distinguished by color.

Files can be exported to a user's local computer in a variety of formats (ODF, HTML, PDF, RTF, Text, Office Open XML).

[27] To view and edit documents offline on a computer, users need to use the Google Chrome web browser.

When a user visits Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, or Slides, any files with tasks assigned to them will be highlighted with a badge.

He wrote that offline support required a plug-in, describing it as "less convenient than a desktop app, and you have to remember to install it before you need it".

Once granted, the software received access to the user's Gmail messages and address book and sent new fraudulent document invitations to their contacts.

[54] The phishing attack was described by media outlets as "massive"[55] and "widespread",[56] and The Next Web's Napier Lopez wrote that it's "very easy to fall for".

[55] One of the reasons the attack was so effective was that its email messages passed through spam and security software, and used a real Google address.

We've removed the fake pages, pushed updates through Safe Browsing, and our abuse team is working to prevent this kind of spoofing from happening again".

[63] In October 2017, Google released a server-side update to its codebase, which started incorrectly flagging random documents as unspecified violations of its "Terms of Service" policies.