Publishing documents online

Posted by Rowan Hanna
August 21, 2008

Over the past week we have blogged a little (here and here) about viewing documents online as Flash documents, instead of PDFs. Today I am going to look at a few of the online platforms that can be used to publish your documents online.

Scribd - Scribd is a document sharing website that claims to host over 350,000 documents. Users can upload their documents (pdf, doc, xls, etc) and choose to share them with everyone or only specific people. Documents are viewed online using iPaper, a document viewer for the web (Flash of course), which can also be used to embed documents into your own web pages. Sort of like YouTube for documents. The good news for those of you who only like your documents to come in one flavor is that the published documents can also be downloaded as PDFs. More info about Scribd:

Issuu - Issuu has a slightly more refined focus. Its aim is to be the online home for serious publications that you would normally find in print — Magazines, catalogs, documents — that sort of thing. And unlike Scribd, it only allows you to upload PDFs (which are then converted into Flash documents for online viewing). Issuu also allow you to embed documents that you’ve uploaded into your own web pages, as well as download the documents as PDFs. More info about Issuu:

edocr - edocr has more of a business orientated document sharing  and publishing focus, and unlike some of their competitors, they’re even trying to turn a profit by offering a free and a paid service. It’s free to upload and download documents, but if you want to promote your documents on their site, then you’ll have to pay a fee. More info about edocr:

.docstoc - Docstoc is also geared more towards professionals, with documents available in categories like legal, business, financial, technology, etc. It includes the ability to embed documents within your own website and upload documents from your Desktop to .docstoc with a single-click. More info about .docstoc:

Google Docs - Google Docs differs from the above document publishing and sharing websites in that its not trying to be a publicly available library of documents, rather it’s providing you with a place where you can upload your PDFs and view them in a browser, and also share them privately with other people if you wish. More info about Google Docs:

In summing up, it’s fair to say that all of these online document sharing and publishing platforms have one thing in common, they all want to be the next YouTube. I wonder who will come out on top?


Flash, PDFs & the Web, Tips

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