PDFs, the file format often used for "official" documents and typically opened with the frustratingly slow Adobe Reader, are starting to get much more manageable, thanks to companies like Scribd and Docstoc, which make them embeddable, and Google, who has built its own web-based PDF viewer into Gmail and Google Docs.Now, that same functionality has arrived in Google search results. PDFs now include a "quick view" link, which opens up the given file in your web browser. From there, Google has options like zoom, paging, print, and search.
The company says that they've been able to do this for more than half of the PDFs in its index – the ones that haven't yet been converted will still have the "View as HTML" option if you'd like to avoid the download.
This feature has been one of my favorite additions to Gmail, as it eliminates the need to download and then open a PDF on the desktop with Adobe Reader, which can grind system performance to a halt. Now that it's a part of search results too, there aren't too many scenarios in which you'll still need to view PDFs the old fashioned way. And that's a good thing.
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