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Light and easy

To put it gently, Adobe Reader is a real pain in the hindquarters. It's monstrously large, slow to load, and includes many features most users will hardly ever need. Foxit PDF Reader 3.0 kills the bloat and throws in some useful features, such as multimedia support and content-sharing options, while still allowing you to quickly access your PDFs.

The interface mimics Adobe's, so you won't have to change your reading habits. In our test, the text readability was similar. The small program starts surprisingly fast compared with Adobe. You might need to fiddle a bit to … Read more

TextFlow makes multiple author edits less painful

TextFlow, a new way to collaboratively edit documents, is opening up to everyone Monday morning. Instead of going the real-time route like Zoho and Google Docs, the service opts to let a master editor corral multiple versions of the same Microsoft Word document inside of one file.

Each editor sends in a copy of the file (presumably via e-mail), and the master editor drags and drops all of them into a single bucket. The application then divides the edits into sections, letting the master editor pick whichever revisions make the most sense. When finished, he or she can convert it … Read more

Turn any file into a PDF

PrimoPDF 4 converts just about any file type to a PDF, using the source program the file was created with and its print command. Two new changes make the program easier to use and more useful. The interface redesign is definitely easier to navigate, and users can now choose to email the PDF instantly after its creation.

The conversion process from whatever document is on your screen to PDF is quick and efficient. Other features include a security feature, which allows the user to wrap the PDF in 40-bit or 128-bit encryption, PDF merging, and password protection. The user also … Read more

Documents To Go Premium now on BlackBerry

BlackBerry users have been waiting for Documents To Go, an excellent document viewer that's been besting native viewers on mobile phones, for years. On Tuesday, Data Viz ended the impatient toe-tapping with Documents To Go Premium Edition 1.005 and its new companion PDF-viewer, PDF To Go.

The Premium Edition of Documents To Go ($49.99 for a yearly subscription or $69.99 for a lifetime license), builds on the Standard Edition that comes preloaded on the BlackBerry Bold (review), which also officially released in the U.S. today.

This pro version lets you read, fully edit, and create … Read more

Gorgeous docs host Issuu launches pro service

Last week Web-hosted documents service Issuu launched a brand-new service for business users who want to host document files without Issuu's branding or advertising. Users who subscribe to this model can be billed by the page view, all the way up to a million views a month, with a special viewer that can be both integrated and branded to match the site.

Additionally, pro subscribers get document SEO, reader analytics, and a bulk uploader to send up files in large batches. Of the three, SEO is likely to be the most attractive since documents that have been posted can … Read more

Documents to Go (Word, Excel, PowerPoint viewing): Coming Soon for iPhone

DataViz, publisher of the venerable Palm OS application Documents to Go, has announced its plans to bring a version of the application to the iPhone. The software allows users to view and edit Word documents, PowerPoint presentations and Excel Spreadsheets and offers many other features, including the ability to display graphic files.

Some features available on the Palm OS may not make it to the iPhone because of Apple's stringent developer agreement.

DataViz is projecting delivery of Documents to Go for the iPhone in 2009. The company asks that anyone interested in news or information about the software sign … Read more

Scanned documents found...by Google

If you've ever had trouble finding scanned documents on Google, it's probably because it was not indexing them. On Thursday, this all changed. Google has announced that it is now indexing scanned documents.

Google is now able to perform optical character recognition (OCR) on any scanned document it finds stored in the PDF format. OCR technology is able to "read" a scanned document and covert it into words that can be searched and indexed.

OCR technology has always impressed me, I mean deciphering between a "0" and "O" is hard enough for … Read more

ShowDocument does simple live collaboration

If you're in need of a quick and simple way to share a document with a few other people at the same time, worth checking out is ShowDocument. It works with most major file types including PDFs, Word docs, PowerPoint presentations, and text files, and displays them in a simple Flash-based viewer and editor.

Once you've uploaded any file up to 2MB in size, you can mark it up with a pen and highlighter tool, along with a text box tool and eraser. There's also a small chat box to discuss changes, and everyone's cursor is … Read more

Microsoft's interoperability documentation: A lesson in foot-dragging

For all its endless talk about really, really wanting to open up its documentation to enable interoperability with its products, Microsoft is still dragging its feet on delivery of this documentation, according to a US judge as reported by Ars Technica yesterday.

Today saw Kollar-Kotelly hold the latest hearing on the status of the consent agreements, and a number of reports suggest that there still seem to be problems there (no legal documents arising from the hearing have been filed yet). Although the Dow Jones Newswire seems to think everything is fine, other reports seem to contradict this.

Reuters, however, … Read more

Rider 8 Tools: Super-search your documents

If you've ever wasted time scouring a long document for every place a specific phrase appears, or worse, have had to look for that phrase in more than one document, you need Rider 8 Tools ($19.95), a slim but powerful search application that finds multiple terms in multiple files within any set of parameters you throw at it.

For instance, if you need to see every time the term "business plan" shows up within three words of "market growth" in a 50-page document, you would use Rider 8 Tools to quickly peruse it. You … Read more