Dropbox Now Lets You Edit PDF Files While On The Go

Dropbox says that, starting now, customers will be able to edit PDF files saved into their Dropbox account while using iOS applications, with support for Android set to arrive in the near future. This improved support for working with the popular file format comes on the heels of Dropbox’s partnership with Adobe, announced last month, which included Dropbox’s integration into Adobe’s Document Cloud, among other things.

Before today, Adobe and Dropbox had already rolled out support for working with PDFs from the Adobe app on the desktop, and the Adobe iOS application. That is, in addition to opening and viewing files, any edits you made to your files would automatically be saved to your Dropbox when complete.

Now this same sort of integration is live in Dropbox’s iOS applications, as well. That means users will be able to annotate or comment on their PDF files stored in Dropbox, or even electronically sign a PDF using the Acrobat Reader app, and have their changes saved back in Dropbox.

Support for Android will arrive early next year, says the company.

To use the new feature, iOS users on iPhone or iPad only have to click the “Edit” button after first opening the PDF file they need to make changes to from within the Dropbox iOS app. This will openAdobe Acrobat Reader on your mobile device.

The added integration makes sense for both companies as many of Adobe’s customers are already using Dropbox as their file storage solution of choice, while Dropbox is trying to better cater to its business user base who wants more seamless ways not only to store and share files, but also collaborate on them and edit them, too.

In fact, Dropbox just last month made a significant move in terms of entering the document collaboration space when it announced the launch of Paper, a Google Docs competitor that’s something of a shared whiteboard that also offers support for checklists, rich media embeds, @mentions, and more.

A partnership focused on document editing is not unique for Dropbox, however. The companypreviously teamed up with Microsoft to offer support for editing Microsoft Office files, like Word, PowerPoint and Excel online. Office document editing has been available on Dropbox mobile, too, thanks to a similar integration with Office’s mobile apps.

Source :TechCrunch 

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Dropbox announces ‘all-in-one’ collaboration tool to compete with Google Docs and Evernote

Dropbox is moving from a file storage service to a collaboration service, focusing on small businesses and creatives with its new all-in-one collaboration service, Paper. The premise of Paper is simple; it’s a place where you can create, edit, tag, and chat all in one document. It essentially combines the aesthetic of Medium with the collaboration features of Google Docs.

Originally named Notes, Dropbox decided to ditch that name for Paper. It has been in closed beta for a few months, and in that time Dropbox has added new tools to the collaboration service, intended to make it a heavy competitor against some of the established services.

Documents will begin with a blank page and minimal formatting options. Users can choose regular typeface with headers and bold or Markdown. Lines of code will automatically be formatted, similar to Dreamweaver’s code-recognition system.

Users will be able to import photos, videos, and soundbytes to the document. Other collaborators can be tagged in the document through an @ mention. And other Dropbox documents can be easily shared by importing them, with these being made instantly available to everyone inside the document.

Once multiple users have collaborated on a document, text will be highlighted identifying who wrote what through a feature called Attribution. Collaborators can comment on the right side, similar to Google Docs, and can even send emojis like a wizard’s sleeve.

A search bar is available at the top to instantly find something inside the document or in another collaborated document. Dropbox has cut down on the amount of toolbars, settings, and other clutter. The goal is to make Paper as simple as possible to use, while making it a powerful tool for collaboration.

Dropbox Paper is currently only available in open beta, with an invite necessary to partake. For now, it looks like Dropbox is targeting the individual with the closed beta, but might work with small businesses to bring them up to speed with the new collaboration service.

The only worry is that Dropbox may have come too late. The established players, Slack, Evernote, Google Docs, and OneDrive, each have a strong user base that is committed to using that platform. It will be hard for Dropbox to change opinions, unless Paper can truly offer collaboration tools that far surpass the aforementioned competitors.

Source : Digital Trends 

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Dropbox Now Lets You Drag And Drop URLs To Share Webpages

Dropbox announced a pretty handy feature today that allows you to drag and drop URLs into Dropbox. Anyone with access to where you’ve dropped them can then open the web pages on any device.

It’s basically a bookmark that you can provide as context to something that you’re working on or sharing with someone.

Here’s what the team had to say about it:

Now, you can drag and drop URLs into your Dropbox — on the web and on your desktop — and open them on any of your devices. This means you can take your bookmarks anywhere, instead of having them confined to a certain browser on a certain computer. But it also means you can organize all your information, no matter the format, into Dropbox folders — so your information is in one central place.

When sharing a folder with someone, you now won’t have to jam a URL into the message box or upload a PDF of a web page. Not a huge feature, but definitely a useful one. Mind you, it won’t store or cache any files from the web, it’s just a link to the web page (although there are third-party apps out there that do this). Maybe that’ll come next.


Source :TechCrunch 

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