What is an online doc viewer?

Sharing docs online often comes with plenty of problems.

We’ve heard horror stories from more people than we can count. They shared a document with their team, only to immediately get messages from everyone saying they couldn’t read it.

Or they tried to embed the document in a note for collaboration, only to have to respond to a dozen emailed requests for access.

In the process of handling permissions, file types, and formats, there are way too many places to get lost.

That’s why finding the right online doc viewer is so important.

This article will show you how to find your perfect online doc viewer, so you and your team can work together without interruptions.

What is an online doc viewer?

An online doc viewer is a browser-based app that you use to see any type of file on any device.

At first glance, this might not seem like something anyone needs. Shouldn’t you just be able to open a file and see the document, or the video, or the picture?

Sadly, it’s not so simple.

We’ve all known the frustration of trying to open an important document and getting an error message or a file full of gibberish.

Usually, it’s because there’s a mismatch between our viewing software and the file’s format.

But why are there so many different formats for documents — even simple text documents? Once you decode them, they all seem to come out looking the same.

It’s partly because of corporate competition.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, when a company developed a new program, they often built a proprietary file format that only their software could open. That’s how .doc and .docx came to be.

But it’s also for the same reason a tool belt comes with multiple sizes of a wrench. Different use cases call for different tools.

For example, TIFF is the highest quality image file format. So why aren’t all images saved in TIFF form?

In order to avoid sacrificing quality, TIFF files are enormous. JPEGs take up much less space on a server. They’re ideal for image-heavy websites — like any dashboard made using the monday.com digital asset management template.

So how do you deal with so many file formats?

You used to have to grit your teeth and download different software for each format you worked with. If you needed to reference several docs at once, your only option was constantly switching between each app.

Now that online doc viewers are on the rise, it’s possible to read every doc you need from a single location.

And the perks don’t stop there.

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What are the benefits of an online doc viewer?

This is even more helpful when the working document is a collaborative effort between all the members of your team.

For example, monday workdocs allow everybody you work with to share a document without any lag. They also let you embed images, tables, and other documents for easy reference.

You can also get doc viewers that aren’t online. These ones are downloaded and installed like any other offline software.

But that takes up storage space and only works on one device. To get it on another device, like your phone or tablet, you often have to pay again.

An online doc viewer is the most convenient, risk-free way to ensure you’ll never run into a file you can’t read.

Now that you understand the benefits, the next step is to find the online doc viewer that works for you.

What should I look for in an online doc viewer?

You have a lot of options for viewing files online.

Most of them have the bare minimum functionality of being able to read multiple file types. But what other features should you look for?

First, look for what types of files the viewer is capable of reading. It should be able to view as wide a range as possible.

It’s also important that you can inspect files before opening them, especially when working with files you didn’t create. This protects your systems from viruses.

An online doc viewer should either let users convert one file type to another or (even better) standardize every doc it receives, so converting between types isn’t necessary.

Cost is a factor, of course — make sure to choose a doc viewer your team can afford. And, you should test out any app to see if it’s user-friendly before you commit to it.

Finally, there’s the mobile angle. An online doc viewer should not only work on any device, but it should let you see every file no matter how you access it.

We know that’s a lot of factors. To make the choice easier for you, here’s a bit of a spoiler: our favorite online doc viewer is built into monday.com workdocs.

How does collaborative document functionality (a bit like Notion, Quip, or Google Docs) combine with a universal online doc viewer? See the next section to get all the details.

Why is monday.com the ideal online doc viewer?

monday.com is first and foremost a Work OS, so you might not think of it as an online doc viewer.

However, the purpose of a Work OS is to be whatever you need it to be. And, we’ve built ours to help solve your online document problems. All it needs is a little input from you.

There are 2 ways to use monday.com as an online doc viewer. Each has a slightly different use case.

You can get a doc viewer app directly from our app marketplace or use our workdocs feature.

1. monday.com online docs app

To add an online doc viewer to your monday.com account, download it directly from its page on our apps marketplace.

Once you add this app to a monday.com dashboard or board view, you can use it to embed any document or file you have a link for.

It works for Google Drive documents, YouTube videos, Google Maps, and files from a wide variety of other sources.

When you upload a document to monday.com, you can do more than just read it. You can annotate it for your colleagues and make it directly accessible from a dashboard.

And you can do all that without leaving the app, so none of your workflows get disrupted.

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2. monday workdocs

The second way to get document reader capability out of monday.com is through our workdocs app. As a refresher, workdocs is a platform for instantaneous collaboration.

It allows you to create cloud-based documents that you and your team can work on together in real-time, adding comments and sharing data with simple shortcuts.

Workdocs isn’t just a word processor —  though it does have all the familiar features you’re used to, like keyboard shortcuts, undo/redo, copy/paste, and various heading options.

It’s also fully connected to all your other monday.com workflows and all their associated content.

That means that if you’re talking with your co-workers about data in one of your dashboards, you can embed that dashboard directly in the workdoc, saving you from having to go back and forth.

You can also embed other elements, like charts, images, and even other documents.

That’s why we call monday.com the ideal online doc viewer. Because it can do anything: not just view, but also edit, comment, and share.

Whether you’re viewing documents alone or chatting remotely about them with your team, productivity is highest when you don’t have to change apps.

Should you get an online doc viewer?

Online technology isn’t perfect, and it’s never going to be.

There will always be tripwires and hiccups — like files that are unreadable because of a decision somebody made 25 years ago.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that we have the technology to get past those aggravations.

Using monday.com as an online doc viewer makes your work faster, easier, and more fun. If you’re ready to see for yourself, demo monday.com today.

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