Emoji reactions were recently added to Google Docs, and now the company is making it simpler to use them in your actual document. Today, it revealed a new shortcut that eliminates the need to open your computer's picker or copy and paste icons from other places in order to quickly insert an emoji while writing.

The simplest is to simply type "@[emoji name]," and typing "@emoji" will open an emoji picker that can be searched, similar to the one on your phone.

You can also type "@:[emoji name]," which is the quickest and most accurate approach in my experience. It's simply quicker to type the colon after the @ symbol because doing so will frequently open other functions or prompt me to mention a colleague. This is especially true considering that I know all the correct emoji names thanks to Slack and Rocket.

According to Google, this feature will begin to appear for some users today and will be available to everyone by the end of September.