View Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations and More Directly in Zenbe Mail with Scribd

October 9th, 2008 by Tom Alison · comments ·

This morning we added the ability for you to view documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDF files and more directly in your web browser without having to download them to you computer and open them with a desktop application.

Anywhere you see a document in Zenbe, whether it’s attached to an email or uploaded to your Files tab, you can hover over it and see something like this:

Zenbe Document Menu

Simply click the ‘view’ link in Zenbe and we’ll handle creating an online version of the document you can view without any external programs.

This feature was made possible via integration with a very cool company called Scribd. The first time you view a document in your browser we send it over to Scribd and they convert it to their iPaper format that opens directly in your web browser. The conversion may take a few moments, but when it’s done you’ll see a very nice looking online version of your document in a window like this:

Zenbe Online Document Viewing

You can print the document or download a PDF version of it right from within your browser. We’ll even show you a thumbnail of the document the next time you hover your mouse over it, or if you view it in the Files tab with thumbnail mode turned on.

When you subsequently open the document you don’t have to wait at all for the conversion – we’ll load it right away.

This is perfect for all those times you’re at a computer but may not have the right version of Microsoft Word or Excel installed, or maybe you don’t have it installed at all.

Your converted documents are safe and secure – and only accessible by you via Zenbe.com. They are not published on the Scribd web site.

Currently the following types of documents can be viewed online:

  • Adobe PDF (.pdf)
  • Adobe PostScript (.ps)
  • Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx)
  • Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pps, .pptx)
  • Microsoft Excel (.xls, xlsx)
  • OpenOffice Text Document (.odt, .sxw)
  • OpenOffice Presentation Document (.odp, .sxi)
  • OpenOffice Spreadsheet (.ods, .sxc)
  • All OpenDocument formats
  • Plain text (.txt)
  • Rich text format (.rtf)

Note that password protected documents, or some PDFs with restrictive permissions may not be able to be converted.

We’ve created a forum topic about viewing attachments and documents in Scribd. Feel free to let us know about any questions or issues you have in that forum.

More about Scribd:

CrunchBase Information on Scribd
Scribd
Information provided by CrunchBase

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Announcement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

15 Responses to “View Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations and More Directly in Zenbe Mail with Scribd”

  1. Ina Says:
    October 9th, 2008 at 5:00 pm

    I am speechless, I am very impressed with all the features and the speed of development. Thanks a lot.

  2. Per Magnus Riseng Says:
    October 10th, 2008 at 6:04 am

    Brilliant! This is truly a great feature and will save me lots of work on those Wordless Macs at the office. Keep up the good work!

  3. Tobotron Says:
    October 10th, 2008 at 6:43 am

    WOW giving what Zenbe users want + more… :D

  4. Gillian Says:
    October 10th, 2008 at 10:40 am

    Brilliant – I love this !! I get many of my bills online & this is perfect for viewing them without having to download.
    Zenbe just keeps on getting better & better
    thanks guys :) )

  5. Wins Says:
    October 10th, 2008 at 3:29 pm

    Very useful. Particularly when the correct software is not installed to view the document. It also saves the downloading of the documents unless it is very necessary. Tks guys.

  6. ZenbeLOVER Says:
    October 10th, 2008 at 4:35 pm

    This is perfect. Keep up the good work!

    All the features make zenbe email so smooth and easy to work with. Truly is enlightened email.

    Love the look, too.

  7. Matt Says:
    October 12th, 2008 at 2:30 am

    You guys are so on the money with this project!

  8. Prasanna Says:
    October 12th, 2008 at 6:27 pm

    hi.. That was a very cool job. Looking forward for more.

    Thanks,

  9. antistress Says:
    October 12th, 2008 at 6:49 pm

    That is great except it requires Flash to work (whereas Gmail opens these documents in HTML format).
    Flash is not open and requires a plugin whereas html is open and works in all browsers.
    I don’t want Flash on my Linux system

  10. will Says:
    October 12th, 2008 at 8:49 pm

    Hi antistress…if you don’t have flash installed you can still download the pdf conversion of your document. There will be a button at the top of the window to download the pdf even if the flash document does not load.

  11. Eugene Says:
    October 13th, 2008 at 3:39 pm

    perfect – I like this !!

  12. antistress Says:
    October 13th, 2008 at 6:49 pm

    will : you’re right, that’s amazing !

    Why not having the choice to open the pdf file in the popup menu ?
    We could have :
    view / save / save pdf / detail
    it’s quite weird to have to click view to save in pdf

  13. will Says:
    October 13th, 2008 at 8:03 pm

    good suggestion antistress…I’ll run this by the team. Thanks for using zenbe.

  14. Paul Says:
    October 14th, 2008 at 9:18 am

    This is indeed a lovely feature. Well done!

  15. Nick Vall Says:
    October 23rd, 2008 at 12:00 am

    almost there… If Zenbe could auto open each attachment that is sent to a mailbox and put it (the attachment) in a slideshow view (like itunes does with albums or photos). This would be the most amazing feature. So if you get many attachments sent to your email if you could just scroll through LARGE thumbnails (good size views of say pdf attachments) of each attachment fast….Then you would have something truly ground breaking. Many people would find it hard not to use a service that could provide that???