San Francisco — No PowerPoint? No problem! Consistently striving to improve its services, Google, just a few months back introduced a browser support for viewing PDF files in Gmail, and that has now been improved upon with the ability to view TIFF and PowerPoint (PPT) documents directly from within the Web browser without the need to install any additional software, powered by Google Apps.
In order to view these files , Gmail users can now open them up without having to save them to the desktop and without having to buy, install, or wait for specific software to start up.
This means users can view all PDFs, PowerPoint (PPT) presentations as well as .TIFF-formatted images that have been received as attachments in its HTML, multi-page document viewer in Gmail.
According to software engineer Marc Miller on the Gmail blog notes that “Gmail has rolled out this viewer with a richer set of features than the older ‘View as slideshow’ version: users can now zoom in and out, select text to copy and paste, and ‘print’ the presentation to a PDF document. And, unlike the old version, we no longer require you to have a Flash plugin installed on your browser.”
In addition to that, the TIFF viewer allows you to see an entire TIFF document, and not just the first page. Furthermore, the preview of .TIFF-formatted files is also something new and functions just as it does on JPEGs, PNGs, and others.
“I do not know about you, but the TIFF files I receive are almost always multiple-page faxes — and the default TIFF viewer on my computer only shows me the first page,” Miller wrote. “It becomes quite frustrating. On the other hand, our online viewer … will show you every page and give you the option to print.”
This viewer is powered by Google Docs and shows every page and additionally provides the “print” option to prepare a ready-to-print PDF file. You can also upload documents right to Google Docs for further editing.
Google continues to make improvements in more ways for users to view and access links and files within Gmail, never allowing them to leave the service or keep moving inside of another Google product.
From an enterprise view, this improvement is actually a major benefit. Many businesses place limits in files that can be emailed back and forth, and some may not permit employees to download some files at all. With a feature like this, employees would not be putting their PCs at risk by downloading files.