Q. How much does this cost?

A. Our Google Docs Publishing service is free. You can store as many documents as you like, and you can share them with as many people as you like. We earn a few pennies with some advertising in the documents that you upload.

Q. Where is my PDF file?

A. Your PDF file is uploaded to our server and then relayed onto Scribd, who provide the back-end technology to store and render the documents. Your PDF file is removed from our servers after 24 hours.

Q. What formats can I upload?

A. You can upload any of the following formats: pdf,ppt,pps,xls,ps,odt,odp,sxw,sxi,txt and rtf.  Most users are interested in uploaded PDFs, so the documentation just refers to that format for convenience.

Q. What is iPaper?

A. iPaper is a document format built for the Internet. Like a YouTube video, iPaper documents are Flash widgets which you embed in your existing web pages. PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and many other document formats can all be displayed on the web using iPaper. Learn more about iPaper here.

Q. Can I use my own Scribd account?

A. Not with our free online service. We do offer a desktop publisher where you can use your own Scribd credentials. Please call us for more details.

Q. How Secure are my documents?

A. The document images are stored on the Scribd server-plex. This is a state-of-the-art facility that houses millions of documents. Each document is uploaded as 'private', which means no one will see the document through normal searching.  If you wish to use your own Scribd account and have control over the back-end process, please give us a call - we offer a private label version of this upload and publishing service, plus a lot more to help companies automate their information delivery.

Q. How can I share my PDFs?

A. Google Docs offers a powerful document sharing engine, which is what we are leveraging with this technology. If you have to distribute a read-only report to several managers in your company, you can easily do this with our technology. When you pubish a PDF file, we generate a Google Docs compatible HTML file that you published in your Google Docs account. You can then use the 'Share' button and share this file with anyone you like! If a user can see the HTML proxy file that you publish, then they can see the underlying PDF file.  Think of the HTML file as the key to your PDF file.

Q. Do my users need special tools to view the file?

A. Not normally. Most browsers can handle iPaper without any new downloads. An easy check is this: if you can view YouTube videos, then you can view iPaper documents.

Q. Am I breaking the service agreement with Google? 

A. No! We are adhering to the spirit of Google Docs. You are publishing an HTML file that links to a special image of your PDF file. This is well within the usage scenarios for Google Docs.

Q. Can my user's annotate the PDF file?

A. Not directly. However, you can allow them to edit the HTML file, which has a section for comments. If the user only has view-acccess to the HTML file, then they will not be able to add comments.

Q. I have thousands of files to distibute. Can this be automated?

A. We offer comprehensive services around bulk publishing. Please give us a call, and we can talk more about your situation.

Q. Can the service publish the html proxy file for me?

A. This version of the publisher does not require any type of sign-up or registration. We are looking to build those into the application in the near term.