Paper (Notes)

Paper (Notes) is a product for joint work over projects and exchange of the ideas.

2017: A release of the final version in Russian

At the end of January, 2017 the Dropbox company announced completion of beta application testing for joint work with documents of Paper. The final version of a product is translated into 21 languages, including into Russian.

During the action on which the global release of Paper was announced representatives of Dropbox told about new opportunities of the competitor of Google Docs. One of innovations consists in automatic creation of the presentation and their start in the environment of Paper via the browser.

The screenshot on the website Paper

Dropbox Paper is good the fact that it perfectly supports modern workloads — the manager on product development of Kavitha Radhakrishnan says. — We rethought the application. We wanted to be convinced that it can be used not only for viewing, but also for another. We wanted to support all stages of creative process.

According to Radkhakrishnan, Dropbox Paper is also interesting to users as the instrument of task allocation and management by them that it will allow to reduce number of meetings in the companies.

Along with Paper the Dropbox company submitted the program for Smart Sync computers by means of which users will be able to browse and get access to all the files which are stored in a cloud or on the PC. The application is a part of Dropbox Business — the corporate (paid) version of the online data warehouse of Dropbox.

Release of Smart Sync and Paper the Dropbox company showed the emphasis on the business sector. By the beginning 2017 Dropbox has 500 million users from whom 200 thousand are corporate clients. The number of the last in two years doubled.

The head of Box company (the competitor of Dropbox) Aaron Levie says that it is very important and very difficult to service providers of cloud data storage to sign contracts with large corporations and state bodies. Such transactions which bring the stable repeating income can try to obtain, only if completely to focus on them, Levie noted.^[1]

2016: Paper beta testing

On August 5, 2016 Dropbox announced free access to the mode of testing of the Paper service.

The company started open beta testing of Dropbox Paper service - the tool for joint work.

Screenshot of the software window, (2016)

The starting Paper screen contains four tiles. The first three serve for creation of the document with the preset content (they are called "A notepad for actions", "The ideas for the project" and Brainstorming). The fourth allows to create the new empty^[2].

Developers emphasized: the main objective of Paper — to share the ideas and content, but not to be engaged in decoration of the text.

Paper has ample opportunities of integration of multimedia: the user can insert the photo. It is possible to place references to videos from YouTube or music tracks from Spotify or SoundCloud. In this case reproduction is possible directly from the document.

Paper supports an insert of links to the general files in Dropbox. As soon as the user places such reference, the application automatically creates the preview. It is possible to exchange links to the Microsoft Office files. Dropbox for quite some time now supports viewing and editing such files.

Paper allows project managers to create task lists and to appoint their execution to the different employees, entering their names accompanied by the character @. Besides, the application has the built-in function of automatic formatting of the code that does it suitable for programmers.

The company provided mobile application along with start of the open beta. The Paper application is available on the Android platform to all users. The version for iOS was promised for the European users "soon" and so far.

2015: Announcement

On October 16, 2015 the Dropbox company started the web application under the name Paper. As envisioned by developers, it should become the competitor of Evernote, partly Google Docs and similar tools for work^[3].

Appointment

Paper is the former name of Notes service. Testing of a product became known in April, 2015. It represents the text online editor started in a browser window. The product has the minimalist interface and is intended for joint work - several users can work on the document at the same time.

Minimalism of opportunities

At Paper are practically absent the tool for formatting. On a white canvas the text is displayed, it is possible to change its value — three sizes are available. It is impossible to select other font, but it is possible to make the text greasy, oblique and underlined. It is possible to make out quotes.

The main objective of Paper, developers noted - to share the ideas and content, but not to be engaged in beautiful execution of the text.

Multimedia insert

Paper has rather ample opportunities of integration of multimedia. For example, the user can insert the photo. It is possible to place references to videos from YouTube or music tracks from Spotify or SoundCloud - reproduction will be possible directly from the document.

Screenshot of application window 2015

Paper supports an insert of links to the general files in Dropbox. As soon as the user places such reference, the application automatically creates the preview. It is possible to exchange links to the Microsoft Office files. Dropbox supports viewing and editing these files.

Additional opportunities

Paper allows project managers to create task lists and to appoint their execution to the employees, entering their names accompanied by the character @. The application has the built-in function of automatic formatting of the code that does it suitable for programmers.

Start terms

For October 16, 2015 Paper is available as the web application. The company is going to release the version for mobile devices. Developers do not announce output terms.

Notes