View PDFs with Google
by tdaxp ~ June 12th, 2008
Google Docs just keeps getting better and better: it’s long supported OpenDocument, the international standard in data exchange. Now it supports PDF as well:
Upload PDF Files to Google Docs
Update: In less than a day, the feature has been added and you can now upload PDF files, share them and view them online. The PDF viewer is not very advanced, but you can use it to search inside a PDF file, select a block of text (Ctrl C to copy the text) and go to a certain page.
PDF is a great technology, but Adobe Acrobat (the program typically used to view PDFs) is awful. One of the things I miss most about linux is konquerer, the non-Acrobat PDF viewer. Now I have a way on Windows to easily view PDFs withoutAcrobat: Google!
Tim, Based on the traditional laws of the United...
June 12th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Yeah, but can it convert other formats into .PDF? My old pre-Vista version of Acrobat Pro works haphazardly under Vista — but one feature that didn’t cross the chasm from XP is the convert function. Since I have some admin requirements for .PDF files, I’m about ready to shell out for the latest Acrobat Pro edition….
June 13th, 2008 at 5:17 am
Shane,
Vista breaks stuff??? Does Microsoft know about this???
More seriously, to answer your question: “Yup!”
From the Google Docs menu, File | Download files as gives you options for PDF, Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, depending on the type of file), OpenDocument (odt, ods, odp, depending on type), rtf, and HTML (zipped).
If you have a gmail account, you already have a Google Docs account. Just click “Documents” near the top fo the gmail page, or sign up at docs.google.com