Useful Google Bookmarklets

I've always been a fan of bookmarklets, small pieces of JavaScript code saved as bookmarks in your browser. Often they provide features only available if you install a plug-in and they're pretty easy to backup.



Here's a small list of bookmarks related to Google's services. Most of them provide features from Google Toolbar. To save them, make sure bookmark toolbar is visible (go to View > Toolbar and check Bookmarks Toolbar, Links or Personal Bar, depending on your browser) and drag the link to the toolbar.



1. Subscribe to a feed using Google Reader: Subscribe. This is especially useful for browsers like Internet Explorer that don't have a proper way of handling feeds.



2. Translate a web page into English: Translate. This also works for text selections, but you have to choose the destination language. Other translation bookmarklets are available here.



3. Bookmark a page: Bookmark. If you don't want to install Google Toolbar, this a very good way to bookmark the current page at Google Bookmarks.



4. Add an event to Google Calendar: Add event. You can select some text from a web page or enter the description of an event after you click on the bookmarklet.



5. Map this. Select an address from a web page and instantly get the map.



6. Google Cache bookmarklet lets you view the cached version of the current page. This may be useful if a page doesn't load because of a server error.



7. Definitions lets you select a word or an expression from a web page and get the definition from Google.



8. Blog links shows all the blogs that link to the current page. Web links is the same bookmarklet adapted for links from the entire web.



9. Send text by SMS - this only works in the US and you must know the name of the mobile carrier.



10. Highlight the words from your Google query in the search results: Highlight. This extremely cool bookmarklet created by Dominique Hazaël-Massieux checks the referral, parse the query from the URL and highlights the words so you can easily find the relevant sections of the web page.