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Dropbox Paper
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Feb 10, 2017 at 11:08 AM
If you’ve been wondering what happened to Hackpad, here it is in its new incarnation as Dropbox Paper:
https://www.dropbox.com/paper?_tk=email&oqa=novan2euv2&oref=e
Has anyone got any experience with this?
Steve Z.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Feb 10, 2017 at 02:27 PM
Ah. Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I have had a play. Believe it or not ;-)
It’s quite cool, and is steadily progressing. Unlike some of its naffer competitors (Box Notes, I’m looking at you), it has a search function and some very powerful formatting functions (tables no problem, nice copy-and-paste from web pages). It’s also got versioning, word counts, and sharing (you can share it with pretty much anybody). It’s very similar, in fact, to Google Docs, but actually rather more elegant.
What I like most is that Dropbox clearly has a team working on it who are trying to incorporate all the best aspects of e.g. Slack, Quip, Google Docs etc. without going overboard and making it unmanageable. So far, they’ve done a pretty good job (although I’d love a more sophisticated search function with e.g. highlighting of found terms within listed documents - but maybe that’s on its way).
And there’s an iOS app, too.
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Feb 10, 2017 at 03:07 PM
Thanks for the feedback, Bill.
I was fond of Hackpad, though I didn’t really find a use for it. I’m glad Dropbox is developing it into a useful app. I’ve just started playing with it, and it seems impressive. I’m going to test it out by organizing two upcoming talks I have to give.
Steve Z.
Posted by shatteredmindofbob
Feb 10, 2017 at 10:12 PM
Has it been updated at all? When it first launched, it looked like all they did was re-brand Hackpad without any real changes. I felt a little underwhelmed.
Also, the always the cynic, I can’t help but think of Mailbox and Carousel.
Posted by dan7000
Feb 11, 2017 at 12:03 AM
Underwhelmed is my impression too. I’ve really wanted to like Dropbox Paper and have tried it out a bunch of times. I do like the iOS app and I like the idea that my $100/yr for dropbox could be leveraged with another service. But:
- it’s not super fast or easy to take a note on the PC. I need a notetaking solution that is there when I answer the phone. Paper seems to always be a half-dozen clicks and a few spinning icons away. For browser solutions, Quip is way better. And Quip has a better ios app too.
- I need something that makes it super easy to get content in. Paper doesn’t even have the basic things everybody offers: you can’t mail notes in! There’s also no web clipper and no Outlook plugin.
But the main reason it doesn’t work for me is harder to pin down: I have tried it for a full day three or four times. And each time, I end up just not feeling like it’s working for me. After 3 or 4 college tries, it will take some serious changes to get me back again. [No it won’t! Who am I kidding? I’m a crimp-er: I’ll be trying it again in a week. :)]