In an attempt to battle the likes of software giants Google and Microsoft, the cloud storage service provider Dropbox has announced the upcoming release of Paper - a collaborative tool for writing and editing documents. The web-only app is currently in its beta testing phase, and users who are interested in trying the app will need an invite before anything else.
Last April, Dropbox quietly announced their collaborative note-taking tool called Notes and launched it only as an invite-exclusive beta test. Back then, Dropbox tagged it as "a new way for teams to write together." A screenshot of the web app's interface looks quite similar to that of Google Docs, featuring clear indications that display tags of multiple users working on editing a document.
Starting today, the product is now rebranded as Dropbox Paper, and its beta testing phase is expanding rather significantly. However, users that are interested in jumping into testing it will still need invites. According to reports, it comes with a couple of interesting features to go against Google's and Microsoft's own services. Aside from sharing and collaborating in a text perspective, Paper can allow project managers to add to-do lists that are complete with mentioning and tagging team members who need to look at a specific work; coders can also add lines of codes right into Paper and it will automatically format it accordingly.
Files present on a user's Dropbox account can also be added to Paper directly, and sharing a file's URL will automatically format it to give a peek to its users. Photos can also be dragged and dropped right onto Paper. Furthermore, Google Docs files are supported in the web-only app, and it's the first time Dropbox has integrated with Docs and drive, considering that both platforms are from the main competitors of the company's service.
There are still a wide variety of collaboration services available today, and Paper is a welcomed addition to that collection as it can work hand in hand with Dropbox's own cloud storage service. Those that want to have a go at the web-only app can request for an invite by signing up and joining the waitlist here.
