Since Google started out with Google Docs, they have been adding a lot of new interesting features to the service to compete with the likes of Microsoft Office. Of late, the competition is really steaming up and Microsoft is battling to win back the online documents supremacy. However, Google’s integration of Google Docs with Gmail and their other services offers users an option to open and view documents, images and PSD files in their email without having to download them locally.

I have been using the option to open documents and PDF files in Google Docs for quite sometime now. However, one feature I found missing was the ability to open password protected PDF files in Google Docs.

Also Read: Remove Password from PDF Files | Unlock Password Protected PDF Files

It looks like that the Google Docs viewer just got smarter (or that it was already but I noticed it now) and allows you to open password protected PDF files without having to download them to your local computer.

The new feature is currently available for PDF files only and I wasn’t able to test it with a regular Office 2010 word document which was password protected. Hopefully, Google should add a feature for other password documents soon.

A few months back I had reported that Google Chrome had started to display PDF Files inline. Google Chrome beta users will now be able to get the inline PDF viewer in the latest update v8.0.552.28.

The feature which was first spotted by me in version 6.0.495.0 dev took longer than expected to make it to the beta channel. Chrome’s new PDF viewer makes it easier to open PDF Files in the browser itself, eliminating need for external PDF readers. Google Chrome 8.0.552.28 has been updated for all platforms. You should be able to view PDF files inline in Chrome once you have updated to the beta version.

Also Read: 18 Handy and Unique PDF Tools | PDF Tools and Services you should definitely use

If you are planning to get a business card for yourself, and you have no idea how to design it, here is a quick and easy way. Free PDF Card is an online service that can create a free business card for you.

Go to the Free PDF Card website and you will see a form. Each of the form fields represents a line in the preview business card (to the left) in a vertical order. Beside every text field of the form there are basic formatting options like bold, italics and font size. If you wish to show your company logo, upload it using the “Upload Logo” button. You can also show your image if it’s for a personal purpose.

Start filling the form with the info you wish to show on your business card. Do the necessary formatting until you are satisfied with its look. Every time you wish to preview the changes you have made, press the Preview button below. Following is a demo PDF card that I created for myself using Free PDF Card.

Once you have completed editing your free business card, press the Download button just below the card preview section. The card will be downloaded as a PDF file which you can print.

Google has for long been able to read PDF files using Google Docs, their browser Google Chrome though did not have the feature to open PDF files inline and unless you used an Google Chrome extension  to open the PDF files with Google Docs, you would have to download the file to your PC before you could view it.

However, it looks like the latest dev version of Chrome (6.0.495.0 dev) now supports opening PDF files inline in the browser. This means that you can view any PDF documents you want in your browser without needing to download it. If you do need to download a document, just right click the webpage and click "Save as…" from the available options.

This feature is definitely a good one since users would not have to rely on a offline PDF reader to view files and can do so from within the browser itself. I tested this with several documents, out of the 10 I tested, Google Chrome was able to display all the 10 documents inline.

Adobe Acrobat Reader and Microsoft Internet explorer have become a top favorite with hackers. Internet Explorer with its innumerable vulnerabilities forms an excellent learning ground for crackers. Another hot favorite with them is Adobe Reader.

Both Adobe and its users are fed up by continuous release of updates and follow up hack attempts in spite of these updates. In a recent announcement, Adobe has announced that it will release its next Reader software as a sandboxed application.

Sandboxing prevents an application from accessing the underlying data and creates a virtual environment for the application to run. This keeps the processes within the application free from each other and prevents them from accessing data from the computer.

Brad Arkin, Adobe’s director of security and privacy says,

With sandboxing, anyone who encounters a malicious PDF will find that a successful exploit is kept within the sandbox.

The sandboxing approach however, cannot ensure complete safety, as the sandbox itself has to be powerful enough. However, it will need two levels of breach before any actual data is compromised.

(Source)

The Adobe Reader has been released for Android and is available at Android market officially. Although, the release of this app went un-noticed and has not gained popularity due to Google IO conference, it has already been downloaded for over 250,000 times now and that number is on a rise.

The Adobe Reader app is in version 0.9.0.0 and has serious lack of features.  To start with, it has no search to look up a word or text. It has no bookmark feature to quick access and bookmark pages for later reading. It has no usable feature of a document reader. The only thing it has, is great looks and a good User Interface (UI).

The app fetches the next four pages in advance and this can help in scrolling. Though, some argue that if we want to jump to a page (far away), re-loading the next four pages from this new page takes some time and this makes the app a resource hog. However, it works nicely if you are a slow reader.

The app also supports multi-touch actions like pinch-zoom. Again, here the rendering is extremely slow and once you start moving out of zoom, the rendering takes some time giving ugly blocks on the screen in that process.

Other options include an open file dialog and switching to text mode which shows the document as text.

Verdict

This is the first version of this product and it is too hard to judge the product from this. The guys at Adobe are clearly confused and they need more time to figure out what basic features a PDF app must contain. I would install this software for its UI and on the hope that a better next version is coming soon. Though, using it something I would not do or recommend at all.

Rating: 2/5

We have covered some pretty unique and handy web based PDF utilities so far. To add-on to the list, here is a simple web based utility, PDFmyURL – which provides you with PDF files when you enter a web address. It also provides you with a handy bookmarklet for quick access.

With advanced options, you can learn how to use PDFmyURL on your own site and even how to run PDFmyURL from your own server.

To use PDFmyURL on your web site, just link the text or image you want visitors to use for downloading a specific URL like,

http://pdfmyurl.com?url=www.techie-buzz.com

You can easily create text link(s) like this: Download this web page as PDF.

This service also provides you with further options to customize the output PDF document according to your needs. If you would like to get a PDF document out of a given web address then, PDFmyURL is a hassle free web based utility worth giving a try!

novaPDF is a professional PDF solution for creating PDF documents and sharing them with others. With the novaPDF Lite provides users with a print driver which allows users to convert DOC, XLS, PPT and other documents to PDF files. You can also merge PDF file and use TrueType, OpenType and Type 1 fonts in the PDF files.

You can download a fully licensed copy of novaPDF 7 Lite, which costs $19.95 for absolutely free. To get your free copy of novaPDF 7 Lite, visit this page and fill in your name and email address. You will shortly receive a email containing license information for your copy of novaPDF 7 Lite.

You will also receive instructions on how you can register your free copy with the provided license key. Have fun converting your documents to PDF files for free.

[via Techno 360]

We have told you about loads of PDF tools in two separate articles:

• Handy PDF Tools and Services you should definitely use
• 18 Unique and Handy PDF Tools

PDF Exploiter is another multi-purpose PDF utility which will allow you to split, merge, encrypt, decrypt and watermark PDF Files for free. PDF Exploiter is an opensource software.

Download PDF Exploiter

PDF (Portable Document Format) is one of the most commonly used formats for files. Usually creating a PDF requires you to have expensive software from Adobe, but thanks to the free tools available online, PDFs can now be easily created and converted without installing any software.

We covered a lot of these tools earlier but another tool that can be added to that list is PDF Generator. PDF Generator is an online, no-nonsense tool that simply lets you convert your .doc, .xls and .ppt files into PDFs. Just upload the file you want to convert and enter your email address. Once the file is converted, you will receive an email with the link to download the file. The file is available for 48 hours after which it will be purged.

The tool would not work if the file is password protected so make sure the documents you upload are unprotected.