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The search behemoth claims its online documents service is used for such a wide range of purposes - from tracking beer tasting results to reproducing knitting patterns - that it need to hand control over new types of graph to its users.

"While we've always wanted to give people more options to view and use their information in Google Docs, we knew that trying to build all of these one at a time would simply serve too few people, given all the different

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ways people use and share spreadsheets," says Google product manager Jonathan Rochelle on the company's blog.

"Instead of delivering just one or two new types of reports, or a new visual map mashup, we decided to deliver a platform on which anyone, not just Google, could build the next best thing."

Google gave the Visualisation API to developers pre-launch, so that there's a series of gadgets already available to Docs users. These include a gadget that turns numerical information into a graphical speedo-like gauge and a dynamic flash-based motion chart.

Applications can also be pushed out to websites that support inline frames, or personalised iGoogle pages and will update dynamically.

The addition of Gadgets is the latest in a series of incremental improvements made to the Docs service since launch, including support for images, form creation and mobile phone access to the service.