Wolfram|Alpha answers a ton of computational and factual questions every day—through our website, mobile apps, APIs, and from within the Wolfram Language itself. Now we would like to introduce a new way to harness the power of computation with the Wolfram|Alpha Add-ons for Google Drive. These free add-ons for Google Docs and Google Sheets enable you to bring up a Wolfram|Alpha sidebar next to your file or get Wolfram|Alpha results instantly, all without interrupting your workflow. To install these add-ons in your Google Drive, click the buttons at the top of our support page.

Once installed, you’ll have a few different options for how to use your new add-ons. First, you can open a Wolfram|Alpha sidebar inside Docs or Sheets by going to the Wolfram|Alpha for Docs or Wolfram|Alpha for Sheets Add-on menu (from within your Docs or Sheets file) and choosing Open Wolfram|Alpha Sidebar. This opens a sidebar that lets you type in your queries and send them to Wolfram|Alpha. When you click the orange equal sign button , result pods from your query will show up in the sidebar. You can then copy these results as images or plain text to use in your document. Or use the sidebar to look up the molecular structure of caffeine, visualize the Poisson distribution, find the processor speed for the Atari 400, get nutritional information for chocolate chip cookies, and all sorts of other things. It’s the full power of Wolfram|Alpha, right inside Google Drive.

The Wolfram|Alpha sidebar is invaluable when doing general research. But if you have a specific question you need answered, there’s an even simpler option for getting Wolfram|Alpha results. In either a Docs or Sheets file, just highlight some text and go to the Wolfram|Alpha for Docs or Wolfram|Alpha for Sheets Add-on menu, choose Compute Selection with Wolfram|Alpha, and Wolfram|Alpha will replace the selection with its result. For example, if you want to know the mass of a proton, just type “mass of the proton,” highlight it, compute the selection, and the mass of the proton will appear, units and all! What’s more, if you select multiple cells in Sheets, you can compute them all at the same time with a single click.

Whether you’re gearing up to tackle next semester’s history class—or just looking to make your daily grind a little easier—go ahead and try out the Wolfram|Alpha Add-ons for Google Drive today. Simplify your workflow, compute answers on the fly, and bring the power of Wolfram|Alpha to your spreadsheets and documents.