Learn how to more efficiently use Google products (Chrome, Gmail, Drive, etc.) Topics include: keyboard shortcuts, search tips, search operators, reverse image searching, searching from the address bar, Chrome extensions, Gmail search tips, Gmail settings and labs, and Drive search tips.

1. Using Google products to quickly
locate and organize information
Presented by: Molly Schoen, Information Resources Specialist
History of Art Visual Resources Collections
StaffWorks Best Practices & Technology Conference
November 15, 2013; University of Michigan.

3. • Chrome is a fast, secure, and easy to use web browser
created by Google.
• UofM’s partnership with Google means that Chrome is
fully available on campus computers and supported by IT
staff.
• Your work email, shared documents, and calendar will be
easier to use on Google Chrome.
• View UM Library ebooks with Google books.

4. • Predictive searching
• improves speed and spelling when searching online.
• Clean interface
• Less clutter = faster performance
• Better website performance
• Chrome is the most popular browser in the US, the
UK, Canada, Australia, and many other countries. Many websites are
designed to be viewed in Chrome.
• Automatic updates
• Latest security fixes are automatically updated. Chrome also comes
with built-in malware and phishing protection.
• Automatic translation
• Instantly translate the content of websites in foreign languages, by
clicking just one button.

5. • Customizable
• Don’t like predictive searches or language translation? Turn it off.
• Select which features and toolbars you want to see, and which
ones you don’t want to see.
• Add extensions to increase productivity and to provide easier
access to your favorite web services.
• Your settings travel from one computer to another
• Sign in to Chrome with your email account from any other
computer, and your bookmarks, history, and other settings will
already be there.

7. • Keyboard shortcuts become second nature once you are
familiar with them.
• They allow you to do common tasks from the
keyboard, which is nearly always faster than using the
mouse.

8. • Ctrl N: opens a new window
• Ctrl T: opens a new tab
• Ctrl O: open a file from your computer on Chrome
• Ctrl Tab or Ctrl PgDown: view the next open tab
• Similar to Alt Tab command in Windows
• Ctrl Shift Tab or Ctrl PgUp: view the previous open tab
• Ctrl 1-9: view a specific tab (1 = first tab on the left, 9 =
last tab open on the right)
• Ctrl L: jump to address bar
• Ctrl F: search for text within a specific tab
Mac users: use the ⌘ key instead of Ctrl

9. • Spacebar: scroll down
• Home: jumps to the top of the page
• Ctrl Shift T: reopens closed tab
• Ctrl W or Ctrl F4: closes current tab
• Ctrl Shift W or Alt F4: closes the current window
• Ctrl D: bookmark current page
• Ctrl H: opens history page
• Ctrl J: opens download page
• F1: opens Chrome Help in a new window
Mac users: use the ⌘ key instead of
Ctrl

11. • For simple Google searches, there’s no need to go to
http://www.google.com.
• All you need to do is enter your query into the address
bar (also called the omnibox.)
• Press enter, and your search will automatically be
completed by Google.

12. • To use a search engine other than Google, type the URL
of the search engine a space, and then your query.
• Type: bing.com Paul McCartney and you’ll get—
• Hit enter, and you will instantly be taken to the search
results from the website of your choosing.
• To search for something from a specific website, type the
URL, a space, and your query
• Ex: www.dia.org Mary Cassatt

13. • Search operators, or Boolean operators, tell a search
engine exactly what and what not to search for.
• Note that many of these operators work in many types of
Google searches (web, image, map, etc.), as well as in
other Google products (Gmail, Drive, Google
Scholar, etc.)

14. • ( “ ” ) quotes: searches the exact set of words.
• Helpful when you remember the exact title of an article, but not
which site it came from.
• Also helpful for identifying popular quotations or song lyrics.
• ( .. ) two periods: searches a range of numbers
• Dog breeds 80..110 pounds
• Camera $300..$500

15. • ( - ) hyphen: exclude all results that contain that word.
• Helpful to exclude synonyms from results.
• Jaguar facts –car –football: search for facts about the cat, not the
car or football team.
• The Carter Family –president: search for the music group, not the
former president’s family
• You can also exclude an entire website from your results.
• 1960s counter culture –wikipedia.org

16. • ( * ) asterisk: acts as a wildcard. An asterisk can stand in
for an entire word, or for part of a word.
• Politic* will search for politics, politician, political, etc.
• * succeed where epics fail.
• OR: search for one phrase or another. Without the ―OR,‖
your results would typically show only pages that match
all terms.
• Useful for accommodating variant spellings.
• Martin Engelbrecht OR Martin Enghelbrecht OR Martin
Englebrecht

17. • site: refines a search to a particular website, or a larger
domain (.gov, .edu, .it, etc.)
• Graphing calculator site:amazon.com
• Academic calendar site:umich.edu
• Lung cancer statistics site:.edu
• Scone recipe site:.co.uk
• Particularly useful to find more trustworthy information by
searching only .edu, .gov, or .org sites.

18. • Try combining multiple operators for spot-on searching.
• 1960s counter culture site:.org –wikipedia.org
• “Line by Line” site:nytimes.com
• Burma OR Myanmar agricult*

19. • Click on Search Tools to filter results.
• Time: Find something published within a specific timeframe, or
before/after a given date
• Results: find results from a specific reading level, or articles
published nearby, or a verbatim search (similar to using quotes).
• Location: refine results published from a specific region.

20. • Example: you want to learn more about last year’s
―Maple Syrup Heist,‖ but all the top Google results are
more recent, focused more on the movie that’s being
made about it.

21. • Voilà!

23. • Use the same Google Search operators
• Parthenon –Nashville to find more images of the original Greek
Parthenon, not the one in Nashville
• Starry Night site:.org to find images of Van Gogh’s ―Starry Night‖
while (hopefully) avoiding commercial replications
• Search Tools
• Size – find small, medium, or large images, as well as images of
specific dimensions.
• Color – search for only full color OR black and white images. Also
can be used to search for images that are primarily one color
(purple, blue, etc.)

24. • Search Tools, continued:
• Type – search only for faces, photos, clip art, line drawing, or
animated images (GIFs).
• To search for a specific file type
(GIF, PNG, JPEG, etc.), go to Advanced Image Search.
• Advanced Image Search also includes other helpful
features, such as filtering by aspect ratio
(square, panoramic, landscape, portrait, etc.)

25. • Rather than trying to describe an image, you can upload
an existing image to Google, and it will try to find a visual
match.
• Upload an image file from your computer, or search by an
image already online.
• Useful for:
• Identifying works of art
• Identifying photographers or image copyright owners
• Seeing who else is using your image
• Finding the name of plants / flowers.

26. • Example: this flower was growing in our office, but
nobody knew the name of it.

28. • Not great results at first

29. • Add a description!

30. • Scroll through the Visually Related Images until you see
a match.
Clicking on the image link, the name of the flower is given:
the hoya. A quick Wikipedia search verifies these results.

32. • As mentioned before, you can search a specified search
engine by typing its URL, a space, and your query.
• Ask.com Nella Larsen publications
• Or you can jump to Google results narrowed to a specific
website by typing its URL, a space, and a query.
• Mirlyn.lib.umich.edu Art through the ages

33. • To make things one step faster, you can set up custom
search engines.
• This enables you to find a specific page on a website, without first
visiting that website’s homepage.
• For example, if you add Wikipedia as a search engine, you can
then find a specific Wikipedia article without leaving the address
bar.
• This shaves seconds off of every search.

34. • To add a search engine:
• Go to the home page of the website and right-click on the search
box.
• Select “Add as search engine…”

35. • Change the keyword to something short and
memorable. I used ―wi‖ for Wikipedia. Click OK.

36. • Now, from any website, you can quickly jump to any
Wikipedia page.
• Type your keyword (wi), a space, and your query.
• Wi 16th Century
• You are directly taken to that Wikipedia page, without first
having to search from Google or the Wikipedia
homepage!

37. • Adding search engines works great with many websites.
• Google Images, Google Maps, etc.
• Umich.edu: search the directory, search for departments, search
for articles, etc.
• Youtube: search for specific videos
• Dictionary.com, thesaurus.com
• Mirlyn.lib.umich.edu: Instantly view library holdings on a given
title
• Unfortunately, not every website will work – but it’s worth
trying!

38. • You can even customize advanced searches from
outside websites to be performed entirely within the
omnibox.
• You could add maps.google.com as a search engine to
instantly bring up a map of any location, but what if you
want quick driving directions?

39. • Right click the omnibox from any open tab and click ―Edit
Search Engines…‖
• Scroll to the bottom of the window until you see ―Add a
New Search engine.‖
• Give the search a name (ex: ―Directions from Work), and
a short keyword (―maps‖).
• Enter
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q
=from+my+home+address+to+%s in the URL field.
• Replace my+home+address with your starting point.
• Ex: for Tappan Hall, 855+South+University+Avenue+Ann+Arbor

41. • Now, typing ―Maps‖ and a space from the address bar will
let you instantly find driving directions from your starting
point!

42. • These and many other brilliant custom searches have
been developed by Chrome enthusiasts.
• Search lifehacker.com to find more.

44. • Extensions are add-ons that modify your browser.
• Categories of extensions include:
Productivity, Social, Utilities, Games, News &
Weather, etc.
• They are fast and easy to install or remove.
• Most extensions are absolutely free.
• You don’t need administrator access to install them.

45. • Recommended extensions:
• Adblock Plus: Removes ads from websites, social media
pages, and streaming music / video sites. Not only does this get
rid of annoying ads, it also increases internet speed.
• HTTPS Everywhere: improves internet safety by using only
secure connections wherever possible.
• Google Dictionary: allows you to double click any word on a
website to instantly view its definition without leaving the page.
• Hacker Vision: reduce eyestrain! Hacker Vision darkens websites’
backgrounds to reduce screen glare.

47. • Gmail search operators work in a similar way to Google
search operators.
• Search operators like OR, “ ”, - , will work in Gmail
• If you don’t remember someone’s email address or full
name, just start typing what you do remember—Google’s
predictive algorithms will try to complete your query.

48. • from: search for an email sent by a person or group.
• From:emanders@umich.edu OR emmaanders28@gmail.com
• to: searches your replies and sent mail for messages sent to a
specific person or group.
• Subject: searches the subject line only.
• In: search within a specific folder
• Subject:office memo In:trash
• Cc:, bcc: search emails cc’ed or bcc’ed to anyone.

49. • Has:attachment – searches for all messages that have
attachments.
• Filename: search for the file name of an attached file.
• Filename:cute_kitten.jpg
• Filename:.pdf
• Older_than, Newer_than: search messages older than or
newer than a range of time. Use a number and d, m, y to
correctly format it.
• Newer_than:7d
• After:, before:, older:, newer: search messages by
date, using yyyy/mm/dd format.
• After:2012/10/09 before:2012/12/08

50. • Browse through Settings to customize what you see and
what you don’t see in Gmail.
• Stars are a fast and easy way to label and categorize
your emails.

52. • To filter by different labeled stars:
• Has:red-bang
• Has:yellow-bang
• Has:green-check
• Has:purple-star
• Has:red-star
Etc.

53. • Check out Gmail Labs for additional features.
• Undo Send: allows you to ―unsend‖ a message up to 30 seconds
after you hit send.
• Custom Keyboard shortcuts: designate your own keyboard
shortcuts to create a new message, search your inbox, select
messages, etc.
• Google Calendar gadget: view your calendar right from your
email.
• SMS (text messaging) in chat: allows you to send free text
messages to anywhere in the US, as well as many other countries.

55. • Operators include:
• Type: filter by type of document
• Type:image
• Type:spreadsheet
• Title: search by the title of a file
• Owner: search shared files by who shared it with you.
• Owner:Elliott Simon
• Owner:me

56. • Google Search operators work in Drive too.
• “” quotes
• OR
• - minus sign
• before:YYYY-MM-DD
• after:YYYY-MM-DD

58. Contact
Molly Schoen
schoenm@umich.edu
734.764.0386
History of Art Visual Resources Collections
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/histartvrc