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Google has recently made some changes to their Docs office and productivity suite live for all users and all new documents. From now on, when you create a new spreadsheet, drawing, presentation or text document in Docs, you’ll be using the stylish new interface and collaboration features as the default.

A couple of months ago, Google announced some major new features for Google Docs. Users were able to preview these upgrades, which included completely group chat, real-time collaboration tools, and completely redesigned editors for documents, spreadsheets, and drawings.

From now on, anytime you create a new document, you’ll be doing so from the new version of Google Docs. Documents already created using the older editor will remain in that interface, and you’ll soon be able to move those older documents to the new version of Docs, too.

Here’s a little video that highlights some of Docs’ new features:

Getting to know Google Docs: The new version of Google documents

Here are some of the most interesting features of the new version of Google documents:

• Real time collaboration: See updates from other collaborators as they edit the document.
• Higher-quality imports: More consistent imports from your desktop into Google Docs.
• Chat with other collaborators: As you make your edits, you can chat with other document editors about the changes, from within the document.
• Ruler: Google documents have a ruler for setting margins, indentations, and tab stops.

What else is different?

These features from the previous version of Google documents, however, won’t be available in the new version:

• Offline document access via Google Gears
• Edit HTML
• Edit CSS
• Keyboard shortcuts have also changed. Check the list of new keyboard shortcuts.

This upgraded version becoming Docs’ new default interface comes at just the right time; Microsoft recently announced a Google Docs competitor in Office Web Apps, a web-based suite that includes a text editor/word processor, spreadsheet editor and presentation software.