What you need to know
- Google highlighted a few updates Chrome for desktop users might find useful late this week.
- The company is rolling out PDF annotations with settings for its pens and colors, a “save to Drive” option for easy Cloud storage, and split-view for two tabs.
- Chrome’s recent updates have been more AI-forward, as Google rolled out “help me write,” webpage summaries, and more.
Google’s rounding out the week with a few Chrome updates users might notice the next time they’re on their PC.
A Keyword post rounds up Chrome’s newest updates that users can expect to see, and may already see in the browser. One thing Google highlights is the introduction of a highly-requested feature: PDF annotations. When opening PDFs in Chrome on desktop, Google states users can “highlight text and add notes” without needing a separate program. Users can perform actions, such as signing their names, adding highlights, and more.
The annotation option is a squiggly icon beside the back and forward buttons in a PDF in Chrome. This opens a side menu that lets users select their writing tool of choice, alongside settings for pen writing size and color.
Another update Google is formally announcing is the ability for users to “save to Drive” from Chrome. This follows behind its PDF annotation update, as users will now find a Google Drive icon present when viewing a PDF. The post states that, when viewing Drive after saving, users will find a “saved from Chrome” folder, which houses their documents.
The final feature of the trio this week is split view. As its name implies, users can place the content of two tabs in one seamless view, so you’re not juggling tabs all day. Right-clicking a tab and selecting “split view” will give you a space to the right to select another tab. We’ve noticed this feature for the past few days already, so it seems Google is simply bringing more awareness to it.
Streamlining the work
The features Google is highlighting for Chrome this week aren’t quite as AI-fueled as its recent patches have been. Gemini‘s AI prowess has been hopping into Chrome for a while, such as “Help me write,” which we previously saw in Docs.
With it, any text box that users come across can be an outlet for them and the AI to collaborate on a short blurb or something more substantial. All the user needs to do is write a request, then sit back while the AI works on that and returns its results.
Another AI-related update is Chrome’s summarization capabilities for Android. Through Gemini’s overlay in Chrome, users can quickly summarize a page’s contents without leaving the browser.
Android Central’s Take
For someone who writes (a lot), Chrome’s split view is probably the only feature I care about. PDFs are never really that big in my daily life. Split view is good for reading press releases, while writing my takes or my views on that in situations like this. While, yes, having more than one screen is handy, this brings just a little more speed to the process, and I’d imagine others could feel the same.
