I understand if you don’t wish to install another piece of software on your computer – or perhaps you have OpenOffice at home and Word or Excel at work and forgot to convert that important file before you emailed it to yourself.

If you have a gmail account, or a google apps account, you can use Google Documents to convert the file for you (provided your company doesn’t have a firewall that prevents you accessing Google Docs).

You can access Google Docs by going to http://docs.google.com or by clicking on the ‘Documents’ link at the top of your Gmail email page.

Once you are logged in you can follow the steps below.

Please note that not all formatting will be preserved, however it will give you access to text and numbers (in the case of Calc spreadsheets).

Step 1

Once you have logged into Google Docs, click on the ‘Upload’ button (see image below).

Step 2

Select the files to upload, and then start the upload as per the image below.

Step 3

Wait while the files upload. Do not close this page.

Step 4

When the files have uploaded, you may either select ‘Upload more files’ or click on ‘Back to Google Docs’ to view the files that you have uploaded.

Step 5

Select the file you wish to convert from the list of documents you have just uploaded. Then select ‘More actions’ and then ‘Export…’

Step 6

The Convert and Download File box will appear – select the type of file you wish to convert to from either the links at the top of the box, or from the drop down box. Then click ‘Continue’.

Step 7

You will then be prompted to save the file to your computer. Remember the file location and then open as you would normally.