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Google Docs is a great online service that allows you to work on documents, spreadsheets and presentations for free without worrying about losing your work if your computer crashes. With its sharing feature, Google Docs is also a cool collaborative tool for any written project that involves more than one pair of eyes.

But what you might not know is all the built-in tools and features that allow you to do much more than just type on the same document at the same time. Once you get a grasp on all the different Google Docs functions, you’ll be collaborating like a pro and won’t be able to go back to anything else.

See also: Google Docs now lets you edit and format documents with your voice

See what others have changed

When you have a document open on Google Docs, go to File and select “See revision history.” This will put your document into a different mode and pull up a sidebar on the right, listing the times that changes were made and who made them. That way you can see who made different edits to a document at what point of the process.

The revision history allows you to see who made different changes and when they were made.

Not only that, you can select one of these revisions on the right to change everything back to that version. If somebody comes in and sabotages all your hard work, you can fix it by easily selecting an older revision before they came in and messed it all up.

Making comments and suggestions

Making comments isn’t anything new in text-editing software. Simply highlight a word, a sentence or a whole page, select Insert > Comment to put a speech-bubble-esque text box next to your selection. Anyone can reply to your comment, allowing for conversations to happen without needing to be online at the same time.

A unique feature to Google Docs documents is the ability to switch between work modes, specifically from Editing to Suggesting. In the top right of your window, there’s a silhouette of a pencil that may say “Editing” to the left of it. If you feather that menu down and select Suggesting, you will now be making suggestions rather than changes.

What that means is every change you make — whether replacing words, adding a space or changing font — will be shown as a comment that has to be approved by somebody before it goes through. This is a great tool for being transparent with edits and allowing people to clearly see what you want to change, add or remove. You can also leave comments on the suggestion to explain your reasoning.

Suggestions show what changes you want to make and must be approved before making the actual edit.

See also: Watch a song get made in real time with Google Docs and Hangouts

Do a brainstorm right

Brainstorming is a key element of doing a collaboration — you have to figure out exactly what you are going to do in your project. If you and the people you’re working with don’t have a chance to brainstorm in person, there’s a Google Docs add-on called MindMeister that allows you to easily creating mind maps out of a bulleted list.

Just start making a bulleted list, with the first one being the main idea and the following being branching ideas. If you want to have branches off your branches, hit Tab after you hit Enter to go deeper into a thought. When you’re done, highlight that list, then select Add-ons > MindMeister and click “Insert as Mind Map.” Now you have a nice image of a mind map in your document to help you figure out what you need to do.

The MindMeister add-on allows you to create mind maps using bulleted lists.

Create a folder hierarchy

When a single doc isn’t enough for your project, you can share a whole folder and work within that, giving everyone access to multiple things. If you add anything in that shared folder, it will automatically allow access to anyone who is a part of that shared folder.

But maybe a single folder isn’t enough. Maybe you’re running a whole publication out of Google Drive. Just add more folders within that shared folder, give them labels like “Rough Drafts,” “Needs Edits” and “Finished,” or create different sections like “News,” “Features” and “Style Guides.” By taking advantage of using multiple folders, you can keep track of the progress of each item in your project and know exactly what needs to be done.

Using multiple shared folders can help you organize larger projects.

Bonus tip: Color code your folders so you can easily tell which one is which. Just right-click and select “Change color.” This will only change the colors for yourself, not for everyone else.