If you're a regular user of the revision comparison feature in Google Docs, you'll likely enjoy new service Compare My Docs. It comes from the same folks who created TextFlow, the Adobe AIR-based app that spot differences across multiple copies of a Word document or rich text file.
Compare My Docs does many of the same things as TextFlow, including being able to compare up to six versions of the same document to see what's been changed. The big difference though, is that it runs right in your browser and requires no sign-up whatsoever.
Just like TextFlow, Compare My Docs color codes any changes it finds between the different revisions of a document and gives you a quick and easy way to accept, reject, or set aside a change. This means you can cruise through a document and keep the changes or revisions you like, while keeping an active log of what you don't.
When finished, you'll have a new version that has all of those changes, which can be saved either as a Word doc or rich text file back on your hard drive. Although unlike what you can do in TextFlow, with Compare My Docs there's no way to publish the finished product to the Web or save it in parent company Nordic River's servers for safe keeping; something that seems meant to entice users to try out TextFlow instead.
Compare My Docs looks a lot like TextFlow, in fact it basically is, but runs in your browser instead of as an Adobe AIR app.
(Credit: CNET)The service does manage to suffer from some of the limitations in the core technology behind both it and TextFlow, including having photos and charts being stripped out. This means you'll have to add them back in after you've run a few documents through its editor.
Along with Compare My Docs, Nordic River is also finally releasing an API for TextFlow, which will let developers make use of the service's comparison technology in their apps or Web services. This could help make up for some of the service's shortcomings, while augmenting the versioning tools currently offered by some online services. File hosting in particular comes to mind, since places like DropBox and Box.net offer versioning, and version rollback, but in order to see the differences you have to save, then open up each file and look for differences. Those places could now very quickly build tools that let users compare multiple versions of a saved Word or text file from right within the app.
Nordic River says that TextFlow in its Adobe AIR form will remain, but that the site is closing up to new users in a few weeks until it readies a new interface. In the meantime the company will continue its free and paid services to those who have already signed up.
Correction 8:57 a.m. on November 3: This story initially misstated that users could not make edits to the text within the tool. This was due to the functionality not being present in the pre-release version of the site used for review.
Google on Wednesday announced that its search results now feature an option allowing users to view formatted PDFs from within their browser.
Although Google's search results have long featured a "View as HTML" option for documents using the Portable Document Format standard, the company in a blog post said that "option loses some of the formatting from the original PDF, such as graphics, tables, fonts, and other elements."
To solve the issue, a new "Quick View" option has been added to some PDFs in search results. When a user clicks on the link, the full PDF file is displayed in the browser with all its formatting intact. The viewer is based on the same service built into Gmail and Google Docs.
Google's Quick View in operation.
(Credit: Google)According to Google, it has been adding the Quick View feature to results since July. Currently, more than 50 percent of the PDFs in Google's index display that viewing option.
Google also said it plans to use the viewer for "more documents and file types."
Filling in a blank spreadsheet is an uphill battle, but one you can win.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)Ever since Documents to Go came out on iPhone--both the standard version and with Microsoft Exchange Attachments--the publisher has been keeping our interest with promises of a version that could edit Excel documents and create new ones in addition to just viewing them.
That version, Documents to Go 2.0, is now here. The update brings Documents To Go back to fairly equal footing with rival Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite, which added Excel creation and editing support a month before.
In addition to viewing Excel XLS and XLSX documents, both Documents To Go apps can now also create new spreadsheets and edit existing ones. After taking a quick spin through the features, we can say it looks as if publisher DataViz, like Quickoffice, has been able to cram a lot of core features into a small space. There's support for multiple spreadsheets, and the capability to resize rows and columns and search cells (the Find feature). There are also formatting and typeface tools, and support for older, even password-protected, worksheets.
While the addition of Excel support brings this app back into direct competition with the Quickoffice suite, what's true in both cases is that it's infinitely easier to edit an Excel document on the iPhone than it is to create one fresh. However, if you must put your tapping fingers through the pages, then the opportunity is now, finally, here.
Online document host Docstoc on Wednesday is opening up an online store for publishers to sell their wares. The company is acting both as the host and the payment platform, as well as providing the viewing technology for the documents.
As part of the deal, publishers get "a majority" of the revenue, although actual figures are based on a sliding scale and depend on who they are and how Docstoc is promoting them.
In order to avoid serving up two versions of a paid document, such as a preview and full version, Docstoc has updated its Adobe Flash-based viewer to limit viewing to several pages of a document. This lets potential buyers take a look before they buy, just as Amazon and competitor Scribd do.
Browsing documents for sale is just like browsing Docstoc's free, hosted documents, except that you can only view a preview until you pay for a content license.
(Credit: Docstoc)As for payments, Docstoc is letting users pay via PayPal, Google Checkout, or with a credit card. There's also a money-back guarantee policy that lets users get a refund if they're dissatisfied. The policy gives users a week to make a return, with up to five returns a year. To keep any abuse from happening, the company is also tracking users' IP addresses, to make sure they're not just opening up new accounts and making returns beyond the five-time limit, although Docstoc CEO Jason Nazar told me he doesn't anticipate too heavy a return rate, since the new viewer shows a multipage preview.
Documents purchased through Docstoc can be viewed on the Web or on portable devices like the Kindle and the iPhone. Rather than selling books, Docstoc is specializing in ready-made forms, presentations, and technical documents--what the company is calling "professional utility documents." However, there are some publishers in Docstoc's store, like WriteMyEssay.com, that cover topics outside of business. Nazar says that the store may continue to expand into other areas, but that it will keep "selectively picking the best, high-quality partners" from those that apply to be included in the store.
Competitor Scribd launched a similar offering back in May with a guaranteed 80 percent revenue share to publishers and pricing limits up to $5,000 per title. Docstoc is launching with its aforementioned sliding scale of revenue sharing, which I'm told has no limit on maximum pricing. It will also continue to offer its advertising service, which places Google Adsense ads next to documents that are offered for free.
Facebook on Tuesday proposed a new version of its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities document, which acts as a terms of service for its users.
One of the larger changes is clearer language of Facebook's share to everyone feature, which is now an integral part of the social network's updated search engine. The new wording makes it pretty clear that anything users post with the "everyone" designation can be seen by the entire world, not just users on the service.
The company also added a new section which details proper use of its pages features, including who is able to administrate them, and provisions that require all content on the pages to be public and able to be indexed by search engines.
On top of that, the company is locking down sponsored status updates. These are user updates which have been paid for by an outside company, effectively turning users into marketing mouthpieces. What's unclear, however, is how Facebook intends to police items that are not known advertising schemes, such as people's personal businesses. Although under the updated document, it's a little clearer that that has to be done on Facebook pages instead.
Some other changes include:
• Not being able to place a "become a fan" widget inside of an advertisement (however you can still place it next to one).
• Clearer language on what kind of information third-party applications get access to.
• A ban on attacks that could disable the service (such as DDoS attacks, which are all the rage right now).
• A ban on pyramid or multilevel marketing schemes.
As with all other proposed changes to the Rights and Responsibilities document, Facebook offers users a chance to provide feedback before the new rules are made final. To view an older version of the updated document, you can hit Google's cache.
PDFVue, the online PDF viewing and editing tool, has a new name, a new look, and a handful of new features.
We originally checked out the service late last year and came away impressed with its handy Firefox add-on that let you read any PDF link in its viewer, and tools for filling out forms and annotating pages. Now called DocQ, those things are mostly unchanged. What's new, however, is that you can now store, organize, and share PDFs.
To help keep a handle on all your files you can add tags as well as organize them into "smart folders." These are named folders you can drag and drop your PDFs into. You can then filter the ones you want to see, just by clicking on the folder name from the top menu. I couldn't get the search to work, which is the only way to make use of these folders and any tags you've assigned.
DocQ's interface remains largely unchanged since its PDFVue days. You can still view PDFs and make quick edits and annotations.
(Credit: CNET)Another new feature is that you can digitally sign documents. In DocQ's integrated editor you can place multiple signatures within a document, then send it off to one or more recipients. Then, whenever the person (or people) on the other end signs, they can send it back to your DocQ in-box. The folks on the other end don't need to sign up for the service to use it, since a special log-in is created from the invitation. For now, the signature feature can only work with one user, meaning each person you send it to is seeing only their signature. However, coming in two weeks will be a way to have multiple people sign off on the same document.
For now, you can upload up to 10 PDFs at a time. Storage and file size are unlimited, although that will eventually change when it becomes a paid service. There will then be caps on how many files you're uploading, and how big they are. DocQ's owner, Docudesk, also plans to deeply integrate it into the rest of its PDF-editing software to let people upload and share PDFs they've created.
I wouldn't recommend relying on DocQ for business just yet. I ran into a handful of slowdowns where I couldn't get back to my list of files. And without the search or tag sorting working, it would have been problematic if I had more files, and wanted to access one in short order. Still, two of the really great parts about this service--editing and annotations--continued to work very, very well.
Related:
Customize PDFs online with these tools
Other posts about PDFs
New service Embedit.in is launching on Tuesday with a tool that lets users host documents up to 20MB in size. Like Scribd, DocStoc, and others, Embedit.in uses Adobe Flash to power a viewer that lets users flip and scroll through pages in long documents.
As the name suggests, documents can be embedded either as a thumbnail that opens up to an overlay of the document reader, or as an embedded player like what you see lower down on this story. In either case, the service doesn't take visitors off whatever site they're on to let them see the content, which is nice.
Along with items users have uploaded individually, Embedit.in can be installed in the source code on any site. This turns any outgoing URLs that link to compatible document files into hosted Embedit.in docs. Each time it discovers a newly-added item it simply downloads it in the background, then reassigns the link.
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20090616/EmbedIt-in-inaction.png
(Credit: CNET)One area where Embedit.in differs from competing services is in letting users make small cosmetic changes to documents after they've been uploaded. To do this, it uses markup tools from parent company Increo's sister project, Backboard. This allows for simple things like highlighting, underlining, and circling. Missing, however, are some of the more advanced items like being able to add new chunks of text or images, or let users go in and make edits to the existing copy.
Embedit.in also has its own analytics dashboard for each document. This shows you how many views a document has, where viewers are from, how many times they've printed or downloaded a local copy, as well as a heat map of where user attention has been. It does this by tracking what parts of the document people have spent the most time on, and can be quite fun to look at if you've hosted something with images.
Embedit.in is very slick but misses some things I think are quite important. For one... Read more
Portable Document Formats (PDFs) are one of those file formats that can cause quite a headache. Sometimes, you want to convert them to a Word file. Other times, you want to convert the Word file to a PDF. But doing so isn't always easy.
Luckily for you, there are a variety of online tools that can modify PDF files quickly and easily. Here are some of my favorites that work right in your browser:
Create Adobe PDF Online does a number of things well. It can convert a variety of file formats to PDF including applications and Web pages. It can also combine multiple PDFs into a single file. When you choose to convert a file, you have the option of getting it e-mailed to you in an attachment, or simply have it load up in your browser. In either case, it takes a couple of minutes for it to deliver the finished product, making it a little slower than some of the other tools in this roundup. If you can wait though, it works quite well.
Webware -- in PDF -- thanks to Create Adobe PDF Online.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Document Converter eXPress from Neevia is a feature-packed app that lets you convert files from any number of formats into a PDF. You can choose from image files like JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and BMP. You're also able to roll back the file's compatibility to be able to work with previous versions of Adobe Acrobat, dating back to version 3.0. There's also a tool to add encryption and a watermark.
Document eXPress lets you go back in time with Acrobat.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Loop PDF is one of the simplest PDF conversion tools in this roundup. You have to create an account to use it, but after you do, the free tool lets you add PDFs from your computer or URLs, and combine them into a single document. You can also convert other file types into PDFs. Loop PDF easily converted files in just a few seconds for me.
Loop PDF makes it quick and easy to upload files.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)... Read more
On Tuesday, ThinkFree Office launched a new Flash-based document viewer called Uni Paper that takes files up to 10 pages and 5MB in size. It works for most common office file types like PDFs, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint presentations. Like Scribd, Docstoc, Docuter, Issuu, and others, it lets users view and search through documents quickly and without the need to have any special office software installed.
If a user wants to make any changes, they can then send that file into one of ThinkFree's various Java-based office document editors, which gets reflected in real-time back anywhere the Uni Paper has been embedded or shared. To make this process a little more streamlined, ThinkFree has also tightly grouped together its document, spreadsheet, and presentation tools into something resembling more of a suite.
This is definitely good news for ThinkFree users who can get a quick preview of any of the files they have stored on the service, but it's not quite as advanced as some of the Flash-based viewers from the competition. It's missing the option to view all the pages of a document at once, and the the directory of publicly shared documents contains very little categorization, or genre-based exploration.
I will, however tip my hat to ThinkFree for wanting to charge into this space. Unlike the rest of these document hosting services, you can actually go in and make edits with a Web-based document editor designed by the very same folks who made the viewer. That's a great way to get people in the door.
I've embedded an example Uni Paper below, and no, there's no way to get rid of the annoying API ad on the bottom.
There are several well-regarded, free ways to take advantage of the Print function to transform just about any file to a PDF. PrimoPDF and doPDF sit at the top of the list, but what about reverse engineering that conversion? Converting in the other direction, from a PDF to a Microsoft Word-compatible format like DOC or RTF is trickier.
For one thing, there's a lot of crap out there. Many PDF-to-DOC converters have similar or even identical names, differentiated sometimes by nothing more than a cunning tap of the space bar. Many offer features that are hamstrung in various ways unless you pay for an upgrade, and just about all of them offer imperfect conversions. Even with these problems, though, you can get a reasonable conversion from the four programs and three Web-based services listed below.
Sometimes right: Some PDF to Word Converter 1.5
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Some PDF to Word Converter 1.5: A basic but uncluttered interface introduces all of the program's conversion options in a sidebar on the right. Some handles batch conversions, converts outer fonts into text and embedded fonts into images, and supports both All Pages and page-range specific conversions. It can remove graphics on demand from the output document, which is always in the RTF format, and supports encryption.
The program suffers from two big drawbacks: the conversions aren't always the cleanest, with occasional image and text overlaps, and there's noticeable image deterioration. In place of drag-and-drop to add PDFs, you can add an entire folder via the folder icon. Some of the interface's option descriptions could be better phrased, too: "delete all graphics" with an option of "false" or "true" really could be posed better as "remove all graphics" and "yes" or "no."
Free PDF to Word Doc Converter 1.1 makes you jump through hoops for a great end result.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Free PDF to Word Doc Converter 1.1 also gets a few things wrong, but eventually lands you the DOC output you want. Impressively, it offers one of the cleanest and most accurate free PDF-to-DOC conversions of the programs tested. You can change the output path and name, convert an entire document or just specific pages, and ditch images in the source PDF if need be. The final output will give you a pitch-perfect conversion.
From there, it goes a bit downhill. The option to open the output DOC in WordPad didn't function when we tested it, nor did the All Pages button. You can work around this by choosing Page Number instead of All Pages (Page Number defaults to the full page count), but it's still irritating. The other big frustration is that while the program is free, after five conversions you're asked to answer a math question a bit harder than the average Captcha. Batch conversion and encryption support are missing, too. If Free PDF to Word Doc Converter's bumpy ride didn't result in such a smooth landing, it wouldn't be worth touching.
Free PDF to Word Converter 1.3: common name, common problems.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Free PDF to Word Converter 1.3 shares many things in common with its competitors besides a similar name: there's an imperfect balance of useful features and a perfect output. What's wrong: there's no drag-and-drop support, and you should be prepared for some minor yet annoying formatting errors, with occasional and minor word and image overlap.
What's right: The program can batch convert PDFs without being restricted to specific folders, can change your output destination, and put out either RTF or DOC. There's support for high levels of security, with space to provide passwords from the PDF owner and the PDF user. You can remove graphics on conversion and micro-manage the spaces between words and text boxes. It's fine for image-free PDFs, but somewhat less than exact with others.
Advanced PDF to Word Converter Free 5.0: nearly-perfect output.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Advanced PDF to Word Converter Free 5.0 nearly crashes and burns on takeoff, but surprisingly leaves you with a nearly-perfect document. It will ask you to reboot on installation, which makes sense for programs that have deep hooks in your operating system but is a clarion warning for such a simple converter. However, as with all these converters, it's the final output that counts the most, and this program's final DOC output looks pretty good.
There's no support for encrypted PDFs, and when you convert or close the program, there's a nag screen to get you upgrade. Batch conversion, RTF and TXT output, and image deletion are restricted to the paid upgrade. The program does offer drag-and-drop additions, adding an entire folder, and user-selected output folders and output renaming. OpenOffice.org users will appreciate that this converter puts out a DOC that OpenOffice Writer can cleanly read images from--unlike many of the others. The biggest problem, of course, is that there is still some image quality degradation and minor text alignment problems.
OpenOffice users should take note that during these tests, I found that the OpenOffice Writer doesn't always play nicely with Rich Text Formatting. There are several free online conversion options as well, and they tend to have better output than the desktop programs.
You can send your PDF as an attachment to Adobe, and within a few minutes they'll send you back either a plain text TXT or HTML file. The service is basic but extremely fast. As long as you don't mind the lack of frills, you can e-mail pdf2txt@adobe.com for the plain text conversion and pdf2html@adobe.com for HTML output, although the HTML service wasn't working when I tested it. More details are here.
PDF to Word, from Nitro PDF.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Nitro PDF, the makers of PrimoPDF, offer a glossy interface for their online PDF to Word format converter. Clearly delineated instructions guide you through uploading your PDF, choosing an output format--either DOC or RTF--and entering your e-mail address. The conversion took a bit longer than Adobe's, but it's worth the wait. The conversion output is a perfect document, precisely the kind of painless process that most of the downloadable options lack. There's no support for encryption, nor for batches, but Nitro's service gets high marks for its precise and fast conversion. Apparently, there are plans to incorporate the PDF-to-Word feature in future editions of Nitro PDF.
There are two other PDF-to-Word services worth mentioning: Koolwire and Zamzar. Koolwire will convert PDFs up to 10MB, but it can also handle DOC, XLS, PPT, VSD, MPP, RTF, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, and MS Office 2007 formats like DOCX. Unlike the other services, clicking on their Web site opens an e-mail to which you only need to attach your PDF and then hit Send. The PDF comes out as RTF, with very minor image degradation and no formatting problems.
Zamzar's uploading interface.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Zamzar will convert PDFs up to 100MB at a time, and in addition to converting your PDF into DOC or RTF, it can output ODT, TXT, PS, and PNG. It can handle batch conversion, as long as you don't mind uploading the files one at a time. When it finishes converting, you receive a link that stays active for 24 hours from which you can download your converted files one at a time or all at once in a ZIP. There was minor image degradation, similar to what Koolwire spit out, and one instance of a formatting error.
Overall, there is no option that can be declared 100 percent perfect. Where one service--whether it's online or desktop--fails, it also tends to offer a better interface, or more conversion options than others. The reverse also seems to hold true, where the best conversions are not always buttressed by the greatest of user experiences. Nitro PDF's PDF-to-Word Web site wins for its output and usability, but if you must go with a desktop client I'd choose Free PDF to Word Doc Converter 1.1 for the resulting document only. If you don't mind minor hiccups, but need a better user experience or more conversion options, Zamzar and Free PDF to Word Converter 1.3 are probably what you need.
Disagree with my picks? Have a better suggestion? Tell me about it in the comments.
[h/t Freeware Genius]
