The value of Google Docs is often judged in comparison to Microsoft Office. I find that the places where Google Docs really excels are the features that are unique to a cloud-based solution. The obvious feature of this sort is the flagship feature of Google Docs: collaborative editing.

Another cloud-unique feature that I find very useful is Google Spreadsheets’ =GoogleLookup("entity"; "attribute") function. This function, in Google’s words, “attempts to find the values for straightforward facts about specific things.”

To better showcase the feature, I’d like to explain how I used it last night. For my astronomy homework, I wanted to do some spreadsheet operations involving the atomic mass of elements present in our sun.

Instead of typing out all of those atomic weights myself—and risking typing errors by doing so—I simply wrote the equation =GoogleLookup(B2, "Atomic weight"). For this sort of simple factual lookup, Google was literally able to fill in the blanks for me.

GoogleLookup is good for many situations where the answers are clear and simple. I’ve also found it useful for applications involving zip codes. It can definitely be a time saver.