How to Use Helperbird with Your Google Drive Files
Install the one Helperbird Workspace add-on and it works on the Drive files you open in Google Docs, Slides and Sheets. Plus what to do with your PDFs.
·
- apps
You keep your work in Google Drive.
Helperbird works on those files once you install one add-on.
Install the Helperbird Add-on
There is one Helperbird add-on for Google Workspace. There is no separate Drive add-on, and you do not need one.
Installing the Helperbird add-on adds Helperbird to Google Docs, Google Slides and Google Sheets. That is where the files in your Drive open, so that is where the reading tools live.
Install the Helperbird add-on. You do this once, not once per file.
Then open a file from Drive, click Extensions, choose Helperbird, then Open Helperbird. The sidebar opens beside your file.
What Works in Your Drive Files
The sidebar shows one tile per tool. What you get depends on which editor opened the file.
| File in Drive | Opens in | Sidebar tiles |
|---|---|---|
| Document | Google Docs | Translate, Immersive, Dyslexia, Readable, A11Y, Statistics, Listen |
| Presentation | Google Slides | Translate, Immersive, Dyslexia, Readable, Listen |
| Spreadsheet | Google Sheets | Translate, Dyslexia, Readable, Statistics, Listen |
Dyslexia sets the text in the file to Lexend Deca.
Readable changes text size and line spacing. In Sheets it changes text size, column width, row height and text wrap instead.
Listen, Translate and Immersive all work on the text you have selected in the file. Listen reads it aloud, Translate translates it, and Immersive opens it in Immersive Reader.
On the free plan the add-on sends up to 1,200 characters to Immersive Reader at a time. Sheets has no Immersive tile.
Statistics counts words, characters, sentences and reading time. A11Y checks a document for accessibility problems and is in Google Docs only.
PDFs Stored in Drive
Google shows a PDF in its own viewer, and the add-on does not open PDFs.
Download the file to your computer first, then open it in the Helperbird PDF Reader. The full steps are in how to open PDFs from Drive, Classroom or Gmail.
What This Does Not Do
- The add-on can only see the file you have open. It cannot read the rest of your Drive.
- Helperbird has no entry in Drive's Open with menu.
- On the Drive page itself you get the browser extension, the same as on any website. It changes the page you are looking at, not the contents of your files.
- Inside Google Docs, Slides and Sheets the browser extension's font, text size, letter spacing, word spacing, line height and text alignment controls are unavailable. Their toggle is replaced by an info button that points you at the add-on. The sidebar covers that gap.
Video Tutorial
Need Additional Help?
Ran into a snag while getting started? No worries at all. Reach out to our friendly Helperbird support team, and we'll help you smooth things out in no time.