We’re pleased to share the latest on our Google Docs Add-On and the engineering work that’s delivering PERRLA to the Docs environment.

Where we stand‍

Development is well underway, and we’re approximately 75% complete! For the initial release of PERRLA in Google Docs, our focus has been on PERRLA’s core capabilities: document formatting and heading styles, PERRLA's best-in-class reference and citation engine, and the formatting logic that ensures papers meet the required style rules. These foundational components are coming together better than we expected, and we’re confident they will deliver the reliability and accuracy users expect from PERRLA.

Overcoming technical challenges‍

From the outset we set a high technical bar for ourselves – PERRLA's Google Docs integration must meet the same exacting standards for formatting as our existing platforms. Critically, we committed to running the exact same reference engine that powers PERRLA Online, the Word Add-In, and the Chrome extension in Google Docs. That wasn't a simple task. Achieving our expected level of consistency required re-architecting portions of the engine so it can be used by different clients and runtime environments. That work added upfront effort, but it was necessary to guarantee identical citation output, reference accuracy, and formatting behavior across all of PERRLA's platforms.

Consistency you can count on‍

We’ve designed the user experience to feel familiar across Word, the Chrome extension, and Google Docs. Beyond surface-level UI consistency, reusing the same back-end engine ensures that citation formatting, DOI/URL treatment, and reference metadata behave consistently no matter where students use PERRLA. That shared code path reduces divergence and the risk of subtle formatting differences that can frustrate students and instructors alike.

Looking ahead‍

The rearchitected foundation yields benefits beyond the initial Docs release. It accelerates development for future features by providing a single, extensible core to build on – enabling us to add capabilities more quickly and reliably across all platforms. We remain on target for an early-2026 release of the core Docs offering, and we’ll continue issuing updates through the coming year until we reach full feature parity.

Thank you for your patience and support as we bring PERRLA to Google Docs. If your department or student group is interested in early testing or pilot feedback, please reach out — developer feedback from real classroom workflows will help us refine the final experience.