Google Sheets gains more Smart Canvas features and joins Docs in adding emoji reactions

If you’ve enjoyed the addition of emoji reactions to Google Docs comments that were added earlier this year, then you’ll be happy to know that Google Sheets is now on board with the same feature. While they’re not for everyone, diversifying communication and simplifying responses in line with cultural evolution has seen emoji take over in recent years as far as large corporate offerings from Microsoft, Google, and others are concerned.

Earlier this week, I covered how you can use the Emoji Picker on your Chromebook to add these little emoticons wherever you’d like, and I mentioned that Google already offered a picker on Chat Spaces, Docs, and more. Now, having one right in Sheets should simplify adding them where necessary.

To use this, just highlight a cell in a Sheet, insert a comment through the menu or by tapping Ctrl+Shift+M on your keyboard and then hover over that comment to see the emoji button appear as shown in the GIF Above. You can remove said emoji with the same process just as easily, and anyone who collaborates with you can resolve comments, thus removing the emoji on your behalf once the message has been received.

Alternatively, you can view resolved comments and their respective emoji by going to the ‘Comments’ section at the top right of the sheet. This feature doesn’t seem to be rolled out to everyone just yet, but once it does, it’s undoubtedly going to change the way we interact with spreadsheets.

I, for one, welcome more Smart Canvas features, and am very excited to see Google Workspace evolve to become more like Microsoft Loop. I just wish a lot of these additional features would work in the Files editing section of Google Spaces where everything is in one place.