Monday, October 19, 2009

"Quick View" PDFs In Your Browser

Google recently added links to search results that now makes it possible to view PDFs in your browser with formatting intact. The new "Quick View" links are based on the same technology available in Google Docs and Gmail, as well as to webmasters through the Google Docs viewer. At the time of this writing Google has added "Quick View" links to more than 50% of the PDFs in their index.














Clicking the "Quick View" link will open up the PDF in your browser with graphics, formatting and tables preserved.

Once your PDF is displayed you can "Search" the document using specific keywords or phrases. Results are hi-lighted in yellow for easy recognition.

Document navigation is accomplished using the arrow buttons, the -/+ buttons or by clicking the document thumbnails which appear in the right-hand margin.




















Document views include one page per screen or two pages per screen.















You can also hi-light text within the PDF and Copy|Paste that text into your favorite text editor.