Open IT Online is a Firefox extension that allows to open and edit documents and images from everywhere. Thanks to this extension, you will be able to open several types of documents directly in Firefox using online services (such as Zoho) without needing any software to be installed. In other words, it adds an option to your Firefox "Open With" dialog to let you open Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more file types in the Zoho suite, Google Docs, ThinkFree Viewer & others. You can configure defaults for every file type - nice and convenient for fans of online editing. Open IT Online is a free download and it works wherever Firefox 2 or 3 does.

Here's more screenshots & a nice video of how to use Open IT Online to view documents online with Zoho. Install the Open IT Online Firefox add-on to view/edit files directly online without downloading them.

Here's a question (with variations of it) we get from the first-timers of Zoho.

I have a document/spreadsheet/presentation that is to be emailed every time to a 'prospect/client' or to my 'boss/peers/co-students/teacher for review'. In the former instance, "I don't want the doc to stay in my prospect/client's inbox (as documents soon become obsolete)". And in the latter instance, "I and my boss/peers/co-students/teacher end up having multiple versions of the file, adding to my/their email clutter". How can Zoho help me here?

Well, this is one of the fundamental problems solved by Zoho. Let's say you have a .doc or .odt file. You have a few options in Zoho that would make things easier for you.

• Import your document into Zoho Writer
  • Share it by giving the email addresses of your prospect/client, boss,peers, co-students or teacher. They will receive an email with a HTML link (URL) which they can click on to view the document. They can edit the document too, directly inside Zoho Writer if you have given them proper permission
  • Make the document public (if it doesn't contain anything confidential) and give the URL to anyone who would like to view it.
• Upload your document to Zoho Viewer. You get a URL which you email to everyone concerned & they can view it. Use the Zoho Viewer option judiciously - there's an option where you can choose the URL to expire after a certain time period

Here's a short screencast (our first attempt. bear with the video/audio quality please!) explaining the above options. For better clarity, view the video in Full Screen mode.

There are other advantages too.

• No compatibility issues that come with using different types and versions of desktop software
• You can keep updating your document and the latest version's available for your prospect, client or whoever you want it to be viewed
• Live collaboration is possible - you and your collaborators can work on a document or spreadsheet in real-time
• And, you can chat too (using the embedded Zoho Chat)

Use Zoho. Say NO to email attachments.

We added a new feature in Zoho Viewer last week which allows users to set an expiry time on the documents uploaded in Zoho Viewer. After the specified time, the document will automatically be deleted from our servers and the link to the document will cease to work. You can also set the document not to expire at all. Refer the image below on the choices available.

The expiry information is available via the Info link in the document page.

Other updates in the last few months include:

1) Japanese version of Zoho Viewer. If you access Zoho Viewer with your browser's locale set as Japanese, then you will see the Japanese version. It was launched in December.

2) A new Slideshow link for ppt/pps/odp/sxi files, which enables you to run a slideshow in full screen mode.

Here is our introductory blog post on the Zoho Viewer. Do try out Zoho Viewer and let us know your feedback.

Like with all other Zoho services, Zoho Viewer got a very good welcome among our users too. Peter and Chris, from comments at Solo Technology :

This is a great tool for sharing docs. I despise the proliferation of Word documents in the office that inevitably results in various versions that require manual merging. In my opinion, giving an online view will encourage group collaboration rather than someone making edits in a silo. Oh yeah, the embedded mode rocks too!

I’d say I agree 100% with you Peter.

I had a chance to use this at work today. Works great!

Oh, and my dad had a ppt presentation he wanted to look at. He doesn’t have powerpoint installed, but it was easy enough to upload it at Viewer and he watched it that way.

From a commenter in TechCrunch :

This might be helpful for people wishing to send formatted, attractive resumes to companies that warn they will not open attachments.It might also be a convenient way to keep an online version of a resume or other info that one might want to access remotely

Upendra's comment at VentureWoods :

Take their latest app Viewer for example. It's promoted as a tool to send attachments of any format without having to send huge attachments there by clogging inboxes of the recipient.

But the real killer is that you can upload attachment in upto 15 formats which can then be viewed in cool formats like PDF, xls etc.

You can use it a like simple PDF converter Upload any file in any format and download it as PDF.

And this is what some of the bloggers had to say :

Gary Price, Resource Shelf : "Notice how easy it is to download, print, and get the code to embed. Another useful feature, short URL’s."

Mike Arrington, TechCrunch : "Zoho isn’t looking to create a community around documents like Scribd does. All documents are private and you must know the URL to view them. They are not listed in any directory or searchable. So it is useful primarily to quickly upload email attachments and other documents you want to share with a few people but not the whole world. Viewers can also quickly download the document in its original format."

Gina Trapani, lifehacker : "No more Gmailing yourself entire files for viewing on the go necessary!"

Zoli Erdos, Zoli's Blog : "Forget attachments, the version control nightmare, software incompatibility issues, storage requirements: share documents by URL. Essentially it’s a TinyURL, SnipURL ..etc for documents, with additional options, like embedding the URL, tracking the number of views, or even editing your uploaded doc’s with the relevant Zoho programs."

Podium blog, "This is surely incredibly useful".

Ioannus de Verani : "I was surprised at how painlessly and perfectly Zoho Viewer rendered the documents that I threw at it ".

More quotes here. Hope this helps in how you plan to use Zoho Viewer. If you have other uses for it, please mention it in the comments below.

We are glad to announce a new addition to Zoho apps - Zoho Viewer - an easy way to share and view documents.

You need not be a Zoho user to use Zoho Viewer. Just upload any of the supported document formats to view the document. The URL you get in your address bar will be the permalink to that document and can now share this document with other users. You can email the link to this document using the 'Share' option or you can embed it using the code given under the 'Embed' option. We also have options to export the document to different formats or you can just download the original document using the 'Download' option.

This short video gives you a quick overview of Zoho Viewer.

The documents you upload are not viewable by others unless you share the URL. They are also not indexable by search engines (unless you link a particular document).We talked about couple of points earlier - 1) Attachment are Evil and 2) Document are URLs. Zoho Viewer is a product designed along those lines. It lets you easily share documents as URLs without having to attach files. Some users internally call it as TinyURL for Documents.

We think this is a very simple and useful application. Please give it a try and let us know what you think.

Update: We increased the upload size limit from 5MB to 10MB.