Dropbox is pushing forward with Dropbox Paper, a collaboration tool that aims to simplify how people work together. Dropbox introduced it as Project Composer earlier this year.
Just like Google Docs and other collaborative word-processing platforms, Paper allows users to compose and edit write-ups on a web-based interface. Dropbox contacts can be invited to collaborate on Paper, which is as simple as Google's solution that sends invitation emails. Collaborative projects will be synced in real-time for each collaborator.
Moreover, Paper offers the ability to annotate individual lines and entire paragraphs within the document. This goes hand in hand with Paper's to-do list feature. If the document is done and input from specific contacts are needed, they can be easily tagged using "@." Once users are mentioned, they will be able to annotate and leave feedback.
The implementation of a chat system is also a neat feature considering the constant communications needed for collaboration. Slack's success as a team communication platform is testament to this.
Users can also search and add videos and images from Dropbox libraries into the Paper document. It will convert a Dropbox link into a video, audio or image that will be visible and can be played through the document.
Furthermore, it offers the same conversion for Soundcloud tracks, YouTube videos and other hosting platforms. The whole process eliminates the hassle of copying a specific code to embed videos and audio tracks. This is something that is not available on Google Docs or Evernote's Notebook.
However, Paper also comes with a major downside. While Docs offers a substantial amount of functionalities within its rich-text editor, Paper is a minimalist. It's more of a plain-text editor, which is understandable given that the project is still in its early stages. Plans of expanding the rich-text editing features within Paper are yet to be disclosed.
At the moment, users who want to curate a document should use another word processor. Besides, Paper is still in beta and people who sign up are put on a waiting list.
Nonetheless, with Paper's release and its established file-hosting and file-sharing offerings, Dropbox is shaping itself up to rival Google for Work and Evernote, which are both platforms that offer collaborative features beyond word processing.
