Apps

Dropbox for iOS Gets Document Scanner w/ OCR, Improved MS Office Integration, More

Dropbox users will find some new features available in the Dropbox for iOS app, as the company today announced a number of app improvements to “simplify, unify, and secure” a user’s workflow.

The new features include a built-in document scanner that allows iPhone and iPad users to make use of their device’s camera to capture photos of notes, sketches, receipts, whiteboards and other type of documents to turn them in digital documents that can be stored in Dropbox.

App features include:

  • Scan documents in Dropbox: With document scanning, you can now use the Dropbox mobile app to capture and organize scans from whiteboards, receipts, and sketches, so your ideas are right at your fingertips. Dropbox Business users can even search inside the scans.
  • Create Microsoft Office docs on mobile: If your idea is better suited to an Office doc than a napkin, you can click the new plus button to create Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files instantly from your mobile device. They’ll be saved to your Dropbox automatically. “The new plus button in the Dropbox iOS app adds a convenient way to create and save Office documents on the go, helping people work better together, wherever they are,” said Rob Howard, Director of Office Marketing at Microsoft.
  • Manage photos from your computer: For Dropbox Basic users who are using their phones to capture memories alongside ideas, we’re also changing the way camera uploads works. You’ll need to connect a computer to your Dropbox account so you can better access, organize, or remove your photos and avoid running out of space.
  • Share files and folders from the desktop: We’re cutting steps from sharing and saving you time with our desktop sharing experience. Now when you right-click on a file or folder in your Mac Finder or Windows Explorer, you can share right from the desktop, without redirecting to the web, or copying a link to email.
  • Add comments to a specific part of a file: It can be hard to make sense of all the feedback you get within emails, chat, and text. So we’re introducing a feature that’s usually only found in design software: adding comments to a specific part of a file. Give precise feedback by highlighting a piece of text or an image anywhere within a file preview.
  • Preview earlier versions: Version history is an easy way to recover old files if accidents happen, or if you just want to revisit an idea. Now you can also preview prior file versions before you restore them, so you know you’ve got the right version.
  • Share with more control: Sometimes you just need to work with a select group of collaborators. Our simple, yet powerful new sharing features give you more control. Now you can share a single file with specific people, who will need to log in to see it. And with view-only access for shared folders, now available for all users, you can also let people follow along.

Dropbox for iOS is free, and is available for download from the App Store. [GET IT HERE] Desktop users can find the desktop app for Mac or Windows, at the Dropbox website. [GET IT HERE]

Chris Hauk

Chris is a Senior Editor at Mactrast. He lives somewhere in the deep Southern part of America, and yes, he has to pump in both sunshine and the Internet.