Dropbox for iOS Gains Document Scanner, Other Productivity Improvements

Wednesday June 22, 2016 10:16 AM PDT by Juli Clover
Dropbox today announced a range of new productivity improvements designed to "simplify, unify, and secure" Dropbox workflows.

New to Dropbox's mobile apps, including Dropbox for iOS, is a built-in document scanner that uses an iPhone or iPad's camera to capture photos of whiteboards, notes, receipts, sketches, and more, converting them into documents that can be stored in Dropbox.

Like many iOS-based scanning apps, Dropbox's scanning tool will automatically detect the outline of the item being scanned and it offers editing tools for straightening, adjusting contrast, adding additional pages, and converting to black and white. Dropbox for Business users have additional scanning features at their disposal, including optical character recognition to convert scans into searchable text.


Improved Microsoft Office integration allows iOS users to create a Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Excel file by clicking a new plus button, simplifying the process of working on documents while on the go. Camera uploads are also being tweaked and going forward, Dropbox Basic users who want to continue to use the feature will need to install the Dropbox desktop app for management purposes.

On the desktop, there are new options to right click on a file or folder in the Mac Finder to share files from the desktop, and there are options for adding comments to a specific part of a file. Version history keeps multiple versions of a file in case a mistake is made, and there are better options for sharing with a select group of people.

Dropbox for the desktop is available from the Dropbox website at no cost. Dropbox for iOS can be downloaded from the App Store, also for free. [Direct Link]

Tag: Dropbox
17 comments


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avanpelt
41 months ago
Gotta love those "Thanks for using Dropbox! We regularly release updates every few weeks..." vague release notes. They serve absolutely no purpose.
Rating: 14 Votes
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Dilster3k
41 months ago
Does anyone use this crap anymore?
Rating: 4 Votes
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Weaselboy
41 months ago

Everyone should look into Sugarsync instead of Dropbox. I can't imagine why people use Dropbox knowing that Sugarsync does everything Dropbox does but also allows selective syncing. No need for double copies - it just syncs any and all folders you specify and you can select which devices very easily. There are very nice apps on all platforms.


I'm guessing it has something to do with this. I sync about 1.5GB of documents to DB free and it looks like the cheapest way to do that on Sugarsync would cost me $7.49 per month.



Dropbox does have selective sync, but it does not appear as configurable as Sugarsync.

Rating: 4 Votes
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Zirel
41 months ago
Im 100% done with Dropbox, goodbye.

Previously when you "shared" a PDF, you shared a PDF, meaning you could open the PDF in other applications.

Now, it only shares a link to the PDF!

Forcing costumers to use Adobe Acrobat if you want that. Adobe and Dropbox have some kind of deal that allows that. But I use a superior PDF reader, don't want to be locked in by Dropbox!

Well, I moved my documents to iCloud and couldn't be happier, because sharing a PDF, means sharing a PDF. I think Microsoft's OneDrive also does the right thing.
Rating: 3 Votes
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Weaselboy
41 months ago

Does anyone use this crap anymore?

Yes.
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Wonder how it compares to scannable. Would be nice to have one less app.

I just tried out the new scanning feature and it works well, but still not as nice as Scanner Pro by Readdle. Scanner Pro has a nice "workflows" feature where you setup several default steps after the scan and it will execute those steps with one tap. For example, I have a workflow setup where with one tap the scan gets saved as a PDF and uploaded to my receipts folder on Dropbox. In the Dropbox app you need to go through three or four screens each time to accomplish the same thing. Nice free add on though for occasional scanning without needing a separate app.
Rating: 3 Votes
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pdaholic
41 months ago
The scanner is an awesome addition to Dropbox. Seems to work well. I stick with Dropbox because it works well and they have the best deal on a terabyte of storage. I've not been disappointed.
Rating: 3 Votes
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LordQ
41 months ago
Snowden said to get rid of Dropbox so no thanks. Genius Scan suits my scanning needs perfectly. Good things for those who use this service though.
Rating: 3 Votes
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keysofanxiety
41 months ago

Does anyone use this crap anymore?


Genuinely just cancelled my Pro subscription today. Oddly timed article! Three main reasons:

1) as soon as you add something, it automatically syncs to all Dropbox devices. Yes, there's selective sync, but it auto syncs new stuff added without any prompting. Annoying as hell.

2) Slow as molasses to download and upload. Three weeks to upload 700GBs worth of videos, from a gigabit Internet connection. It wouldn't upload beyond 3MB/s, through either the browser or application. It seemingly won't download beyond 5MB/s either. Speedtest shows upload/download speeds at 950Mb/s, for goodness' sake. I might as well make my own FTP server if I want to share anything (which is what I'm in the process of doing).

3) Unreliable downloads. I had a load of large (3.5GB+) applications on the cloud, in zip format. 50% of the time, it'll download fully (or seemingly fully) on a clients' machine, but the zip would be corrupted. Won't open. Or missing cabinet files. The file itself is fine. Happens too much to be a coincidence.

Good riddance, I say. Spent way too long wrestling with something that was a hindrance, hoping it would stop being a thorn in my rear. I'd be better off, and it would be quicker, spending £7 per month copying stuff to spare hard drives and couriering them out — which I actually had to do on one occasion.
Rating: 3 Votes
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LordQ
41 months ago

Gotta love those "Thanks for using Dropbox! We regularly release updates every few weeks..." vague release notes. They serve absolutely no purpose.

Ugh, Uber does the same every week.
Rating: 1 Votes
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artmaltman
41 months ago

Everyone should look into Sugarsync instead of Dropbox. I can't imagine why people use Dropbox knowing that Sugarsync does everything Dropbox does but also allows selective syncing. No need for double copies - it just syncs any and all folders you specify and you can select which devices very easily. There are very nice apps on all platforms.


I used Sugarsync for years, precisely for the reason you suggest: far better functionality. But I often found it very frustrating because it uses a lot of battery and was very buggy on the Macintosh. Finally when I tried to cancel they gave me grief and took several months to sort out cancelation. You have to call a special number during a small number of hours (general customer support can't cancel you and you can't use email to cancel and there is no simple online way to cancel!). Once I called during the proper cancelation hours I had to wait on hold a long time. First time they promised to cancel me but kept on billing me. Eventually I had to complain to credit card company and they sorted it all out with Sugarsync. I left with a VERY bad feeling about the company.
Rating: 1 Votes
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