Creating documents directly from emails in GMail

Creating documents straight out of your emails in GMail

If you have not noticed (or used) this feature so far then probably you are missing a really nice feature of GMail Labs. The feature was introduced to the entire world at the Official GMail Blog on Dec 16, 2008.

Okay, what's this used for? As the name might suggest, it's for creating documents straightaway from your emails. So, if you think any of your email conversations in your GMail a/c are needed to be saved, edited, and/or shared as a document then this feature will make your life easier. You just need to click a link named 'Create a document' which appears to the right of your opened email along with 'New window', 'Print all', 'Expand all', and 'Forward all' links.

This feature is not enabled by default and you need to turn it on by selcting "Enable" against "Create a document" and subsequently by clicking 'Save Changes' on the page Settings -> Labs. Find below a screenshot showing all these steps in the required order.


If you were to create a blank document then you need to press 'G' and while this key is pressed you just need to press 'W'. Make sure that the Keyboard Shortcuts are ON for this to work.

The official GMail Blog post which introduces and talks in detail about the feature can be found here - GMail Labs: Create a document. The need for this feature and the potential benefits of using this feature are summarized by the official blog post as below:

"More than once, I've had a conversation over email and later realized that the information contained in the messages would make a great starting point for a document. So I built an experimental feature for Gmail Labs that does just that: with one simple click, "Create a document" converts an email into a Google Docs document.

No more copying and pasting the text from your email -- just open the message you wish to convert, click the "Create a document" link on the right side of the page, and voila, you have a brand new document which you can then modify and share!"

Enjoy the cool GMail Labs feature which might eventually help you by saving your time in your sincere efforts to Go Green by making/keeping/managing as many documents online as possible.