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.

Free 2/3-column XML Skins/Templates for Blogger

Free 2-column/3-column XML Skins/Templates for Blogger

Download & Apply the theme used by this blog

After emailing the XML skin of my blog quite a few times, I thought it would be better to share it on the blog itself so that people interested in it can download it directly from here instead of requesting that via email.

Credits for the XML theme that this blog uses

As you can see from the 'Credits' section of the blog that the main credit of this template goes to Charm Skins and Blogger. I thank all those who're directly or indirectly involved in the design and development of the base template. I just modified it a bit to suit my needs. Similarly, you may also change it as per your requirements. Let me know in case you get any errors while modifying the skin. I will try to rectify them. You probably won't need any help as modifying an XML skin is quite easy in most of the cases.

Structure of this XML Skin

This XML Blogger template can be categorized into four main areas, which are:-

• Header - It consists of a header strip, Name and Short Description of the Blog, and Buttons. These buttons can be effectively used to point to various categories of your blog.
• Post Body - the area which displays the body of the posted articles.
• Footer - it may display Copyright, Privacy Policy, Disclaimer, etc. New elements can be added to show Ads, Feed Reader Icons, or anything else which you may like to put there.
• Sidebar - the sidebar-region has two sections - the top one is a 1-column section and another 2-column section may follow it. So, you can use this XML SKin both as a 2-column XML Template OR as a 3-column XML Template OR may be a hybrid of 2-column and 3-column (what I have for my blog).

Charm Skins has made this skin especially for using Google AdSense advertising on it. Simple HTML/JavaScript elements can be added to put Google AdSense Ad codes in the side-bar region. The side bar section can be further divided into two sections (as you can see on my blog where the top portion is a single wide column whereas the bottom is composed of two columns). Based on whether you want to put the Google AdSense Ad code in the one-column section section of the sidebar-region OR in the tw-column section of the sidebar-region, you may choose AdSense Ads of sizes 336X280 (large rectangle) and 160x600 (skyscraper) respectively. Of course, you may put Ads of other sizes as well, but this template looks to be optimized for these two sizes.

In addition, you may put a large rectangle Ad in the beginning of the post (what I've on my blog) and also horizontal Ad Links can follow that Ad rectangle. Don't know how to insert Ad in the post body? Read this article - Inserting AdSense Ads in post body >>

How can use this XML Blogger Template for your site/blog?

• Download the customised 3-column XML Blogger Template
• Save a copy of your existing blogger template - plz don't forget
• Apply the XML file extracted from the downloaded ZIP file
• Save the changes (Ignore the notification of the missing elements)
• View your blog and hopefully you'll see it in this new blogger theme

Caution: applying a new template will not cause any loss to your posted articles, but if your blog has some other custom Javascript elements added then you will lose them. If you've a long running blog/site then please don't rush into applying a new template. It's always better to choose the right templete in the beginning itself and afterwards modifying the existing one is probably a better approach unless you're too adventurous.

Not comfortable with applying a new XML theme? It's a very easy process involving three simple steps. Find below the steps (click the image to open it in a new tab):-

Find below links to download more blogger themes from CharmSkins. You can modify them as per your needs.

• The Blue Wave Blooger XML Layout - the one which I customized a bit
• Tech Blogger XML Skin/Template - very similar to the above one
• AdSense Tech Blogger XML theme - again the same 2/3 column hybrid
• Shutters Blogger XML Skin - simple and sober
• Terminal Black Blogger XML Theme - the black beauty

Inserting AdSense Ads in Post Body, Sidebar, etc..

Inserting Google AdSense Ads in Post Body, Sidebar, Footer, etc.

Inserting Google AdSense Ads to Post Body

Find below few simple steps to insert Google AdSense Ads in the post body. You just need to parse your AdSense Ad code before inserting it into the template. If you don't have a HTML parser then use this Online HTML Parser.

Once you have got the parsed HTML AdSense Ad code, follow the below steps to find the particular places in the template code to insert your parsed Ad code:-

Not all of my Google AdSense are being displayed - why?

You would definitely be knowing that at the max you can have 3 content AdSense Ads and 3 link AdSense Ads being displayed on any web page. So, based on your configuration of the maximum number of posts being displayed on your home page, you may not see Google AdSense Ads embedded in all the displayed articles on the home page. Remember, post-body Ads normally take higher precedence than those configured to be shown in the Sidebar-region OR footer-region… probably because the page is rendered in that order – first header, then body and then sidebar/footer. Google AdSense Ads will of course be displayed in that order only and hence Header (I assume you’ve not added 3 content and/or 3 link Ads in this section itself) and Body Ads may cause Sidebar Ads NOT to be displayed for home page (or for any other page based on how many Ads have you added to these sections).

Adding Google AdSense Ads to Sidebar region OR Footer region

It's very easy. Just click 'Add a Page Element' in the respective regions and Select HTML/Javascript element. Put your Google AdSense Ad code in the body of the element. Save and you're done! You don't even need to parse your AdSense Ad code in this case as the element type allows you to have HTML and/or Javascript code.

Just click the link 'Add a Page Element' in the section you want your AdSense Ad to be displayed.

Adding Google AdSense Ads to the Header region

You may follow the same steps as you did for inserting AdSense Ads in the Post body. This time you need to locate the element which renders the Header (the way you located the element which renders body of the articles for inserting Ads to Body). I personally didn't like having any Header Ad for my existing template.