google docshtml
So if Microsoft Word uses .docx (formerly .doc), what 'format' is a Google document in?
How does it all work?
Does it just use the HTML standard to make up the document on the page you're working on? (And if so what HTML revision is it using – at least currently?)
Doesn't appear to be so. Google Docs isn't a full-fledged word processor after all.
What happens when text from one page gets pushed over to the other? Do they both get new revision numbers? Is it automatic?
Did you try uploading one of your Word documents and seeing how Google Docs converted it?
You might be able to fake something up by using the footnote feature in a non-standard way. Insert a footnote at the top of the page and the text for it should appear at the bottom of that page.
Whatever way you do it you're going to have to manually update each time.
Currently a single Google Document can only be either Landscape or Portrait not both. Changing page orientation is done by selecting File and then Page setup...
It is currently recommended to separate the Landscape and Portrait pages into different documents.
A good place to get more information that might help is at Google Products Forums.
Note: An additional option might be to have three files in Google Docs. The Portrait, The Landscape, and Microsoft Word Doc which integrates the two layouts into the correct sequence (this document would be Read Only when viewed in Google Docs).
A Microsoft Word document may allow multiple orientations of the Page Layout, but if it is converted to a Google Document the Page Layout for each page will revert to the first Orientation found in the document.
Also, creating multiple Orientations in Word isn't as straight forward as one might want either.
For those wanting to do this in Word: Use portrait and landscape orientation in the same document
Select the pages or paragraphs that you want to change to portrait
or landscape orientation.
NOTE If you select some but not all of
the text on a page to change to portrait or landscape orientation,
Word places the selected text on its own page, and the surrounding
text on separate pages.
On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click Margins.
Click Custom Margins. (This is the important part)
On the Margins tab, click Portrait or Landscape.
In the Apply to list, click Selected text..
NOTE Microsoft Word automatically inserts section breaks before and after the text that has the new page orientation. If your document is already divided into sections, you can click in a section (or select multiple sections), and then change the orientation for only the sections that you select.
Best Answer
Google uses a proprietary format called “kix”, which was introduced with the then new editor a few years ago. The basic structure of a kix file isn't comparable to structured markup (like docx which is basically a zipped collection of XML files holding content and styles) but rather like a data file which starts with the textual content followed by styling information delimited by ASCII control codes.
What you see in your editor is the HTML-rendered content provided by the underlying JavaScript. If you want to work with the document in another application you are able to access the files via the Google Drive API, as John already pointed you to. Although it’s technically possible yet undocumented to export the kix file, this is due to the proprietary format of not so much use.