June 16, 2008 – 8:30 am

All hail Google! Google has added another feature in Google docs which allows you to read PDF documents natively from within the browser

Instead of loading up a bloated adobe reader, or any alternatives on your computer just to open and read a PDF, Google has added a feature from within google docs that allows you to open and read PDF in its native format. This feature also allows you to reference a URL of a PDF and open it up in your browser.

Previously, Google has provided a way to read PDF in HTML view, but that was iffy at best, as the formatting really got munged. This new inline reader in Google docs maintains the PDF formatting fairly well. Added bonus: the reader allows you to select text and copy the contents.

One of the shortcomings at this point is that there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to open PDF and view attachments within Gmail with this new inline viewer, I had to download the PDF then re-upload to Google docs. You could forward to your secret Google docs email address and access it that way also. Not very intuitive. Im guessing that they should be integrating the viewer within Gmail ‘soon’. Another limitation is that Google limits the PDFs to 10MB in size.

This is similar to the Google’s powerpoint reader that allowed you to open Powerpoint attachments within the browser without having to load up the native Microsoft application or reader on your computer. Since then, they added their own presentation application within Google Docs that allows you to create simple Powerpoint-like presentations within your browser.

This is a yet another way cool feature in the whole suite of Google apps that make it one of the most useful Internet application, and ultimately coolest company, around.