How to work offline on a chromebook

By: Waseem Patwegar

Most people considering a Chromebook are put off by the popular notion that Chromebooks do not work offline. This is not exactly true, there is a lot that you can do on a Chromebook, while you are offline. In this post you will get to know a lot about using your Chromebook offline.

Working Offline On Google Drive

Google starts Chromebook users with 100 GB of free storage on its Cloud storage service called Google Drive. You can think of this as a secure online space, where all your files, settings and apps will be stored, and this is basically where you will be working while using a Chromebook.

Although Google Drive is in Cloud, you will be able to view and edit many of your files while you are offline by following these simple steps.

1. First launch the Google Drive web app while you are still connected to the internet. This app will begin indexing all your files on Google Drive and get them set up for your offline use later on.

2. Next time whenever you are offline and not connected to the internet, just launch the Drive app on the Chrome browser window and you will have offline access to many of your files.

With offline access enabled, you will now be able to view and edit all your Google Docs, Spreadsheets and presentations – This is basically what most people do in terms of being productive on a computer.

Watch the video below from Google on how to enable offline access to your Google Drive.

There are certain limitations of working offline on Google drive – you will not be able to view or edit Google Forms, PDF documents, play videos or browse images stored on Google Drive.

View PDF Files and Videos offline

Chromebooks generally come with 16GB to 32GB of storage which can be extended further by using SD cards and USB flash drives. This means you will be able to download and save files to your Chromebooks hard drive and also to external storage devices.

Chromebooks support a number of file viewers and media players that can be used to view files stored on your computer, SD card or USB flash drives connected to your Chromebook.

Basically you will be able to view PDF files, watch videos, listen to music and also view Microsoft Office files!

How to use Gmail offline.

How about composing your emails while you are offline? In this age of multi-tasking there are users who would like to be super productive and get some work done while they are commuting and whenever it is possible.

In order to use Gmail offline, you will first need to install the Gmail Offline app. This app is available on the Chrome Web Store for free.

1. Download the Gmail Offline app and launch it from your App Launcher.
2. Choose allow Offline mail when you see the prompt.

You will see a split screen view of your Gmail account with email messages on one side and the message screen on the other side.

Being offline you will be able to read, reply, arrange your emails and you can also search for emails.

The emails that you compose and send offline will not be going anywhere, they will be waiting for you to connect to the internet.

The next time you are online, all the emails that you composed offline will be sent to recipients and everything will get perfectly synced with your online Gmail account.

Playing Games and Reading Books Offline

There are lots of apps that work offline, including Kindle Cloud Reader that will allow you to read books offline. You can also play offline versions of games available on Google’s Chrome store.

Apart from apps on Chrome store, there are other apps known as packaged apps that can also work offline on Chromebooks. These apps open in their own windows and work independently off the Chrome browser.

Pixlr Touchup app is an example of a packaged app that works offline on Chromebooks. There are also some game apps, calculators and weather apps that work perfectly fine on Chromebooks, while you are offline.

You can Browse Offline on a Chromebook

If you are still ready for a surprise, there is a Chrome app called Pocket, which allows you to save entire web pages to your Chromebook for offline browsing.

What is good about this app is that it works on any device. Suppose you find an interesting article on a website while you are on your phone, tablet or a computer, you can just save it in your account. Pocket will save this WebPage to your account and the saved webpages will get synced to your Chromebook for offline access.

Watch the video below to learn more about Pocket – If it is on pocket, it is everywhere!

Final Thoughts

As you can see from above, there is a lot that you can do on a Chromebook while you are offline and this should be sufficient for most users.

@chrisbhoffman
Dec 30, 2013, 6:40 am EST | 3 min read

Contrary to all the criticism out there, a Chromebook can be surprisingly useful offline. The key to using a Chromebook offline is preparing ahead of time and ensuring your apps and data will be ready.

Sure, a Chromebook is more useful when you’re online, but that applies to all computers these days. A Chromebook’s offline mode can get you through a flight, subway ride, or some other period of time without Internet access.

Install New Chrome Apps

Google’s new Chrome Apps — formerly known as “packaged apps” — are designed to be offline-first. These apps come from the Chrome Web Store and consist of HTML, JavaScript, and other web technologies in a downloadable package. The app runs entirely offline by default, synchronizing with the Internet. If it can’t synchronize, it will just use the last synchronized data and sync any new data when you next go online.

Google’s own Google Keep app is a good example of a Chrome packaged app direct from Google. This notes app runs in a window on your Chrome OS desktop. Open it when you’re offline and it will appear just as if you were online, displaying all your notes. You’re free to use the app normally, writing new notes and editing existing notes. When you reconnect to the Internet, the app will sync all your changes with Google and download any new notes. Other apps work similarly. For example, the Any.do and Wunderlist apps give you an offline task list that functions in the same way.

Some apps even allow you to work with offline files. For example, Caret is an offline graphical text and code editor with syntax highlighting. It will allow you to work with code files offline or just have an powerful text editor for editing files stored on your Chromebook.

For a complete list of packaged apps, look at the For Your Desktop section on the Chrome Web Store.

Download and Work With Files

Your Chromebook includes a variety of offline file viewers, so you can view a variety of different document and media formats when offline. For example, you could download video files to watch offline, download MP3s to play offline, download PDFs and other documents to read offline, download pictures to view offline, and so on.

After downloading files, you’ll find them in your Files app. Double-click them in the Files app and they’ll appear in the appropriate built-in viewer application.

Set Up Old Offline Apps

New-style Chrome apps offer the best offline experience, but Google hasn’t yet migrated all their old apps to new Chrome apps. Some Google services and third-party apps still require you set them up in the original way.

• Gmail: Install the Gmail Offline app from the Chrome Web Store. It will automatically sync new mail in the background. You can read your email and compose new emails when offline and the app will send them when you reconnect. Note that the Gmail Offline app is separate from the standard Gmail app and has a different interface.
• Google Calendar: Install the Google Calendar app. Click the gear on the Google Calendar website and click Offline to enable offline support. You can then visit the Google Calendar website and view your calendar events while offline.
• Google Docs: Install the Google Drive app. Click the More option on the left side of the Google Drive website and click Offline. Follow the instructions to set up offline access, which will allow you to view, edit and create documents while offline. Just visit the Google Drive website while offline.
• Kindle: Install Amazon’s Kindle Cloud Reader app and launch it. It will prompt you to set up offline access so you can download and read eBooks to your Chromebook for use offline.
• Angry Birds: Install the Angry Birds app and open it. It will install its data locally so you can play Angry Birds when you don’t have an Internet connection.

You’ll probably want to disconnect from the Internet after setting up these apps and test them to make sure they work, as they can be a bit temperamental in our experience.

Use a Linux Desktop

If you’re a power user, you can get a more full-featured offline experience by putting your Chromebook into developer mode and installing a full Linux desktop system. This gives you access to any Linux desktop or terminal application that runs offline.

This option isn’t intended for casual Chromebook users, but Linux geeks who want access to a full Linux desktop environment or suite of command-line tools while offline will appreciate having the option. While online, the SSH command can be used to access remote Linux terminal environments without putting the Chromebook into developer mode.

In the future, Chrome Apps should simplify this process. Having to set up offline access in three different ways for Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs isn’t an ideal experience.

Regular Chromebook users know that the “you can’t do anything on a Chromebook without the internet” myth is simply that: A myth. It’s true that you may be limited without that Wi-Fi or LTE hotspot connection. But that’s the case for any software platform to a degree.

Don’t believe me? Try sending a message in Slack on your Windows or macOS laptop without a connection. See, you’re limited too. 😉

Working offline with a Chromebook can require a bit of planning, however. And my pal JR Raphael has a great article with four strategies to assist with that.

I don’t want to steal the thunder from his useful and detailed article, but in a nutshell, here’s what he proposes:

1. Prep your Google apps for offline usage
2. See what other apps you use provide offline access and functionality
3. Look to Android
4. Download content when you’re online for later reading.

The article is definitely worth the read if you want details of how to implement the “offline Chromebook” strategy.

As good as it is, I’d add two more items to the list though.

Lean on Linux desktop apps if you can

With Chrome OS 69, “Project Crostini” rolled out to supported Chromebooks bringing a secure Linux container to Chromebooks. I’ve written about Linux on Chromebooks quite a bit since then because I think it’s the biggest advancement for the platform in several years. I rely on it daily myself for development and even if you’re not a coder, you can still gain some benefits.

My reason to suggest looking at Linux for offline use is similar to JR’s strategy of looking to Android apps: In many cases, offline functionality just works, even if data can’t be refreshed without a web connection.

Maybe you want to edit photos or videos while offline. Or perhaps you want to play a desktop-based game. Whatever the reason is, I’m betting there’s a Linux app you could download for your purposes. And again, the Linux container and all apps you install within it will run offline.

Share your Google Drive folder with Linux

Chrome OS 73 added the ability to share your Google Drive folder with Linux. It’s a simple process to do — right-click Google Drive in the Files app and choose “Share with Linux” — and when in Linux, you can find the contents of your Google Drive at /mnt/chromeOS/Google Drive. My Google Drive in Chrome OS and Linux

After enabling this share, any of the Google Drive folders or files that you’ve previously marked for offline use will sync to Linux, just as they would to the Chrome OS Files app.

This means you can work with the Google Drive files in full Linux apps while offline, perfect for editing those cloud-stored photos in a Linux app, for example. This also provides an offline method for editing documents if you’d rather not use Google Docs: LibreOffice and OpenOffice are full-functioned apps.

With a little forethought and prep work, you can actually do quite a bit with a Chromebook offline. That wasn’t the case in the early days of Chrome OS but the platform has continued to evolve.

Do you work offline with a Chromebook, and if so, what tips do you have?

When Chrome OS first appeared, it was practically useless without an internet connection. Now, an offline Chromebook is no longer the functionless brick it once was because there are dozens of web apps with offline capabilities. Here’s everything you can do today on Chrome OS without online access.

Create and edit documents

As you might expect, Google is at the forefront of adding offline features to Chrome OS. Google Drive had offline support for a while, and it’s great to use. You can create, view and edit files, with changes automatically synced back to the cloud as soon as connection is restored.

You need to set this up ahead of time, though. From the main Google Drive interface, click on the cog icon on the right, then choose Settings. Tick the box next to the Offline heading and the sync starts with a pop-up notification. There are some limitations, but most Google Drive features are still available.

Search through and write emails

With Gmail Offline and its optimizer extension installed on your Chromebook, you can compose new emails and search through a cache of older ones, though obviously you can’t do any sending or receiving until you’re back online. First, select the Allow offline mail prompt to start downloading messages.

You can choose to sync a week, two weeks, or a month’s worth of emails using the simple settings pane, and all your labels and inbox categories are carried over as well. You can move, archive, and label messages using Gmail Offline too (these actions are synced to Gmail when connectivity returns).

Catch up on your reading

Pocket has an integrated offline mode available, which mean you can catch up on your read-it-later queue on your Chromebook without even a hint of WiFi. The syncing happens automatically when you launch the Chrome app , although it doesn’t work with videos for rather obvious reasons.

There’s no such offline functionality for Instapaper, unless you load up all the articles you want to read in separate tabs before you lose connectivity. Google Keep can work without the web, and syncing is done automatically. You can use either the Keep website or the Chrome app to get at your notes.

Play games

Plenty of Chrome OS games work offline. To find them, go to the Chrome Web Store , and choose Games, then Chrome Apps, then Runs Offline from the left-hand pane. Once you’ve installed the games of your choice, they’ll load up on Chrome OS with or without an available internet connection.

Cut The Rope is one of the best known offline-ready titles, while there are several versions of Solitaire available, and an awesome Free Rider HD Offline Editor to play around with too. Bear in mind that more complex games are going to use up more of your Chromebook’s local storage.

Edit photos

If you have photos stored locally on your Chromebook that need editing offline, then Pixlr Touch Up from Autodesk is one of the simplest options out there. There are plenty of other alternatives. Take a look at Polarr Photo Editor 3 or Piconion Photo Editor , for example, which come with more advanced features.

Open up Pixlr Touch Up and you can apply a range of quick fixes, from cropping to blurring, as well as a number of Instagram-style filters and effects. A text overlay tool is included in the app too. As yet, there’s no offline support for the powerful Google Photos , but it wouldn’t be a surprise if Google added it.

Play movies and music

You can open movie and music files from local storage, but there’s more than that. In the Google Play Movies app, for example, each of your purchased titles shows a small download button you can use to sync it for offline viewing later on (head to the settings page to configure the download quality).

Songist plays tracks from local storage and doesn’t need an internet connection to load or run. Just make sure you download the songs first. Google Play Music doesn’t have an offline mode at the time of writing, and nor does Spotify’s web player , but as we’ve mentioned there is a native player for local files.

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Almost all the things the most shit $200 laptop running any other OS can do! What a time to be alive!

Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer both come with “Work Offline” mode which lets you browse already-visited web pages offline. If you like the feature there, you will be pleased to know that you can use it on Chrome as well. However, it is still an experimental feature and not officially released yet, so it is not that straightforward to find it and might still have some bugs (though it’s working fine for me so far).

In offline mode, Chrome will create a local cache of all the web pages you visit. If you visit any of these web pages again without an Internet connection, Chrome will let you load a previous copy of the web page from the cache. Let’s see how to enable offline mode in Chrome and how it works.

Note: this feature works on Chrome for Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS and Android, and the below-mentioned instructions work on all these operating systems.

Enable Offline Mode in Chrome

Before you enable offline mode, you should know that you will have to enable the feature from Chrome flags. These are under-development features that are not finalized and may negatively affect your browsing experience. If you don’t know what you are doing, then don’t enable/disable other features listed here, or you will be solely responsible for any damages. Just follow the instructions precisely, and you should have no problem.

In the Chrome address bar, type chrome://flags and hit Enter. You should see a big list of features with a warning from Google to not mess with these features.

Here you need to find a feature named “Show Saved Copy Button”. It will be a bit hard to find between so many other features, so type “show saved” into the Search flags box to find it quickly.

Once found, click “Default” button next to it to open the drop-down menu.

You will see two ways to enable the ‘Show saved copy’ button: “Enable: Primary” and “Enable: Secondary.”

“Enable: Primary” will put the button in the error page and “Enable: Secondary” will put the button next to the “Reload” button. However, in my case, “Enable: Primary” puts the button in the error page, and “Enable: Secondary” just turns that button from blue to gray (functions fine, though). It’s probably a bug, but as long as the function stays the same, there is no problem.

Select your desired “Enable” option, and you will see a “Relaunch Now” button at the bottom of the Chrome window. Click on it to restart Chrome, and the offline mode will be enabled.

Open Web Pages Offline

Now that the offline mode is enabled, you can browse the web as you normally do. Chrome will keep creating a cache of all the web pages you visit. Now when you are offline, if you visit any of the web pages again, you will see a “Show saved copy” button on the error page. Click on it, and the page will be loaded.

Chrome will cache images, HTML content, JavaScript, CSS stylesheets and everything that doesn’t require an active Internet connection to work. The page should look almost the same as the original one. Although, content like active widgets and videos will not be loaded, and if the page ws updated from the last time you visited, the new updates will not be shown either.

Note: all the web pages are saved as “Internet Cache,” and if “Internet Cache” is deleted, all the stored data will also be deleted. A browser cleaning tool – such as CCleaner – may delete “Internet Cache” in processing, so avoid using such a tool or uncheck Chrome “Internet Cache” from the cleaning list.

Conclusion

Being able to access web pages offline can be really handy in many situations. For example, if you are going to an area where you may not have a proper Internet connection, you could create a cache of the required web pages and visit them offline any time you like. If offline browsing helped you in any way or you found some bugs while using it in Chrome, do mention in the comments to help others.

To get the most out of your Chromebook you’ll want to be connected to the Internet, but if you don’t have a Wifi signal there’s still a way to access your documents using Google Drive offline syncing. Many are surprised to learn that you can access most of your work and even edit documents without a network connection. And with the latest version of Google Drive it’s really simple to set up.

Get the latest version of Google Drive

In order to use offline files it’s best to have the latest version of Google Drive. To do this open Drive, click the settings cog, and select Experience the new Drive. If you have the most recent version your Google Drive should look something like this:

Enable offline syncing in Google Drive

Setting up Google Drive to sync files offline on your Chromebook is really simple and it works on any desktop or laptop that runs the Chrome browser as well as on Chromebooks. To enable offline syncing:

1. Click the settings cog at the top right of the screen.
2. Click Settings.
3. A Settings window will appear with several options. Check the box next to Offline.

Once you’ve done this all of your Google documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawings will be available even when you don’t have a network connection. This only includes files created in Google Docs — so if you’ve uploaded video file or lots of photos these won’t be available.

Google Drive offline file limitations

As you might expect there are some limitations when using Google Drive offline:

• Google Drive offline sync is limited to the most recent 4000 items or 5GB of offline data. So, if you’ve a lot of files you might find this an issue.
• Offline access will only work in the Chrome browser — it is not available in other browsers.
• If you want to enable offline access on both your Chromebook and desktop computer, you’ll need to set it up twice — once on each computer.

You also can’t change the Google Drive file structure while offline, or edit Google Forms, but most editing features are available in the other core Google office apps. Once you’ve enabled Offline Syncing you can browse your documents in Google Drive and even open them for editing in Google Documents, Sheets, Slides, and Drawing. Some of the more advanced features like spell checking, add-ons, sharing files, adding images, and downloading files are disabled, but the majority of the web apps work the same as if you were online. Once your Chromebook connects to the Internet again everything is synchronised back to the live documents.

When you absolutely must have an offline document

Sometimes there are situations when you have to guarantee that you’ll have access to a file offline. For this you can use Google Doc’s Download as feature.

To download a file from Google Drive, Click File > Download As and then select the format you’d like to download the file in. All of the most common office file formats are available — Microsoft Word, OpenDocument, PDF, Rich Text, Plain Text, and HTML.

Avoid working on shared documents offline

Google Docs is great for collaborating with colleagues, but if you’re working offline on a shared document and someone changes the live version your may run into problems. We recommend not working on shared documents that are regularly updated to prevent synchronisation problems when your Internet connection is restored.

If you have to work offline on a shared document you can use the revision history feature to catch any unwanted changes. Access revision history by clicking File > Revision History.

Happy offline syncing!

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About Karl Rivers

Karl Rivers is a Director of IT who has worked in education for more than twenty years. He won the Naace Impact Award for Supporting School Services.

Reader Interactions

Comments

I have been having trouble with Google Drive Offline sync… for some reason when I click the box to turn it on, I will click down, leave settings, come back and it will be unchecked. Im wondering if it is due to my lack of memory on my laptop or something else. Plz help me…

Thanks for the tips! I am having a small problem though. My interest is to use offline mode when at kids soccer practice and the link to create blog posts in Docs. I can create a new document offline, but if I close it I cannot figure out how to reopen it while still offline. It seems that once I reconnect at a later time the offline document is “synced”. Is there any way to re-open a document that was created offline?

I had this problem too. If you create a file while off line, close it and then try to reopen it while still off line the name of the file does not appear in the file list. However, it is not lost as it appears as soon as you go on line again. It’s clearly a design fault in Chrome. Go to HISTORY where you will see a link to the file which you can click to reopen it. Simple but irritating!

I have a bunch of about 40 files I want to take with me on the train so that I can work on them off-line. I have recently accessed about 6 of them and so they have been synchronised to the Chromebook OK and so I can see them when I turn off the wifi but the rest are unavailable off line, and greyed-out as I haven’t edited them for a long time. I have discovered that if I simply open each file in turn and wait long enough for it to load fully it will be synchronised OK. However, this is a tedious and time consuming process. Is there some way I can force a batch of files to be synchronised in one go so that I can take them with me when I travel? I have tried copying the files to my downloads folder but if the file wasn’t synchronised already then when I try to open it off line I am told it is unavailable. I would also like to be able to flag some files, or perhaps a folder, so that the files are locked and are always available off line. Sometimes you have a data set that rarely gets updated but which you need to be able to refer to at all times whether on line or off line. This functionality is odd as Chome for Windows allows you to control what gets synched but the Chromebook takes this control out of your hands and only updates what has recently been access (up to 5Gb I accept, which is generous) but there are some scratch files, for instance, that I dont want synched as they are clogging up my disk space and there are others I always want synched. No problem under Windows. Are there any add-ins or workrounds that can solve my problem. I am a sincere Chome fan and love my Chromebook but can’t help feeling that some very eccentric design choices have been made here.

PS and off-topic: I recently got a gen 2 Chromecast which is great—but you have to use a Windows computer to set it up. It can’t be done with Google products. What are Google playing at? Some strange design I can only say.

There isn’t an offline option when I click on my settings. Its listed Language then Density, but offline isn’t there.

Google Docs is a web-based word processor that you use on your Chromebook, which means that you must have an Internet connection to access all of its features. However, an offline version of Docs is available in the event you find yourself without a connection to the Internet.

To use Google Docs offline, follow these steps:

To use Google Docs offline, you must first enable Google Drive for offline use. To ensure that Google Drive is properly enabled, open the App Launcher and click the Google Drive icon.

A Chrome web browser appears and takes you to your Drive.

On the right side of the screen, click the settings icon (it looks like a gear).

A menu will appear revealing several options.

A pop-up window will appear giving several general settings options.

Locate the check box to sync your work for offline use and check it.

Click Done.

The pop up window will disappear indicating that the changes have been made. Your Docs files will now be synced and available for offline editing.

You can test whether you have properly enabled offline access by turning off your Wi-Fi. To do this, open the settings panel in the bottom-right of your screen and select WIFI.

The WIFI menu appears.

At the bottom of the WIFI menu, click the WIFI indicator to turn off your Wi-Fi.

With your Wi-Fi turned off, switch back to Google Drive, locate your synced documents and click to open one.

If your document opens and you are able to edit it, you know you have successfully engaged offline use and synced your documents.

While offline, you won’t be able to access some of the features available to Docs users that are connected to the Internet. You will, however, be able to create documents and save them. Later, when you connect to the Internet, Drive uploads the saved documents and enables all Internet-only features.

Yes, you can use Chrome OS offline

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About three years ago, I was shopping for a Chromebook to take on a business trip — I wanted something lightweight enough to carry around all day and inexpensive enough that I wouldn’t mind as much when I spilled coffee on the keyboard. I was considering two different models when a sales rep came over to see if I needed help. “You’re aware,” he said, “that these are Chromebooks, right? They only work online; you can’t save any files to the hard drive.”

It wasn’t the first time I’ve caught a sales rep in a mistake, of course. But this is a mistake that seems to have persisted.

Yes, Chromebooks were created to be used predominantly online — in fact, when the first Chrome OS laptops were introduced in 2011, there were very few apps that could be used offline, which was a major flaw. But that was then, and this is now.

The best Chromebook you can buy right now

Currently, apps such as Google Docs and Sheets (which are the basic apps for Chrome OS) can be used both online and off. In addition, you can save files locally to the laptop’s SSD or, with some models, an SD memory card.

If you’ve just bought your first Chromebook, or are considering one, here are the basics of how to save your files on your Chromebook and find them again.

Save your files

Saving a file in a Chromebook is pretty much like saving a file in macOS or Windows. You can save a file in one of two ways:

• Press Ctrl + S, or
• Right-click on the image or file you want to save and select “Save as. ”

Either way, you’ll bring up the Files app (the equivalent of the Mac’s Finder or Window’s File Explorer). Select which folder you want to save your file in from the listing on the left, and then click on the Save button in the bottom right corner. (If you want to change the name of the file, you can do that in the field to the left of the Save button.) You can also save and retrieve files from Google Drive from here.

The Files app comes preloaded with a Downloads folder, but you can easily create your own folders by clicking on the New Folder button on the bottom left corner.

Find your files

To find your saved files, here’s what you do:

• Click on the Launcher button in the bottom left corner of the screen.
• An apps window will emerge from the bottom of the screen. If you’ve used the Files app recently, it will be listed just below the search field with other recently used apps. Click on it.
• Otherwise, click on the “up” arrow just above the search field to see all the apps in your Chromebook, and click on the Files app.

The Files app also automatically organizes your files into Recent, Audio, Images, and Videos folders to make those types of files easier to find.

Keep in mind that while you can save a reasonable number of files, most Chromebooks come with a relatively small amount of storage — you can probably expect either 32GB or 64GB, unless you’re going for a premium device such as Google’s Pixelbook. So you won’t have the same capacity as you would on a typical Mac or Windows system. But you’re not limited to working online, either.

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Learn how to use tools to create, annotate, and extract text from a PDF on a Chromebook.

Image: Andy Wolber/TechRepublic

People who use a Chromebook are likely familiar with at least a couple of common ways to work with the Portable Document Format (PDF) created by Adobe in 1993 that preserves a document’s layout and design. Receive a PDF in Gmail? Open it to display the file or save the PDF to Google Drive. Want to find a PDF on Google Drive? Search for text in PDFs stored on drive.google.com. Need a PDF for a meeting? Attach or link to a PDF in Google Calendar event details.

What’s Hot at TechRepublic

Follow the steps below to use a Chromebook to create, annotate and extract text from a PDF–all with native Google apps and tools. If you need additional PDF editing capabilities, you might also explore the third-party apps mentioned below. Open your Chromebook and sign in to get started!

SEE: Google Sheets: Tips and tricks (TechRepublic download)

How to use Save or Print to create a PDF

When you edit within Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, or Drawings, choose File | Download | PDF Document (.pdf) to create and save a PDF version of your document (Figure A).

Figure A

Create a PDF from many Google apps with the File | Download | PDF Document menus.

Jamboard also offers a Download As PDF option from the three vertical-dot menu. When you use this method to create a PDF, the system saves the item into your device’s default download location (e.g., chrome://downloads/).

Alternatively, you may create a PDF from Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, or Drawings file with File | Print | and then select Save As PDF for the Destination (Figure B). Ctrl+P from a web page brings up this option, too. The File | Print method allows you to select a location to store the PDF file.

Figure B

Create a PDF from a web page or a Google app with the File | Print option. This lets you choose where to store the PDF file.

How to open a PDF from the Files app to annotate

You may annotate PDFs on a Chromebook from the Files app (Figure C).

1. From the Chromebook Shelf, select the Launcher (typically, this is in the lower-left corner).
2. Type Files in the search box.
3. Click or tap on the Files app to access your Chromebook files.

Figure C

If you want to annotate PDFs on a Chromebook, use the Files app to access your PDF.

4. From the left-side menu of the Files app you may browse My Files (items stored on your device) or your Google Drive files (items stored on Google Drive). Navigate to the PDF you want to edit, then click or tap on it to select it.
5. Select Open (above the list of files), then select View (Default) (Figure D). This will open the PDF in a new browser tab for viewing.

Figure D

From the Files app on a Chromebook, select a PDF, then choose View. This opens the PDF in a new browser tab that includes annotation options.

6. To switch from View to Annotate mode, select the pen icon in the upper-right corner (Figure E). This activates a menu with five icons: A pen, a highlighter, an eraser, an undo button, and redo button. The pen and highlighter options both allow you to adjust color and line width.

You may use the above PDF annotation tools from the File app for any file you can access while offline, as well.

Figure E

Select the pen icon in the upper-right area to access PDF annotation tools.

How to open a PDF with Google Docs to access text

When you open a PDF stored on Google Drive with Google Docs, the system converts the PDF into images and text in a Google Doc.

1. In Chrome, go to drive.google.com.
2. Go to the PDF file you want to access on either My Drive or a Shared Drive.
3. Click or tap on the file once to select it, then select the three vertical-dot menu to display several options. Alternatively, right-click on the file.
4. Choose Open With, then select Google Docs (Figure F). The system will open the PDF in Google Docs.

Figure F

From Google Drive, select a PDF file, then open it with Google Doc to gain access to text contained within the document.

If the PDF contains complex images and layouts, it may not necessarily display accurately. However, PDF files that are primarily text, such as articles or books, are more likely to provide access to the contained text.

Other Chromebook PDF editing options

Third-party apps, such as Kami and Adobe Acrobat, offer even more powerful PDF editing capabilities to people who use a Chromebook (Figure G).

Figure G

For more advanced PDF editing, explore either Kami (a web and Chrome app, displayed here with the dark left menu) or Adobe Acrobat (an Android app, displayed here on a gray background). Both Kami and Acrobat support work offline.

People who need to work offline (as well as online) might explore Kami, which includes markup, comment, text, equation, and shape tools, along with PDF split and merge functions. Kami offers a free basic plan, a professional plan, discounted pricing for teachers, as well as plans that include features often used in the legal profession, such as Bates numbering. People who use Chromebooks that support Android apps could consider the Adobe Acrobat Android app, with many features available for free, although an upgrade (approx. $9.99 per month) adds editing capabilities. Acrobat is also available as part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription service.

Your experience?

Do you often work with PDF files on a Chromebook? What tools do you use to view, annotate, or edit PDFs on your Chromebook? Let me know your favorite PDF Chromebook apps (for online or offline use) either in the comments below, or on Twitter (@awolber).

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