Dropbox's Document Editing Tool 'Paper' Launches iOS App and Begins Open Beta

Dropbox today announced the expansion of its collaborative document editing service "Paper" onto mobile devices running iOS and Android. Paper originally required an invitation to join its beta, but the company is now also opening up access to anyone who's interested in trying out the service, either on desktop or mobile.

Paper lets work teams tackle projects at the same time, within a singular document, and even embed videos, images, and more to create successful projects. With feedback from its first beta users, Dropbox has introduced a few new feature updates to Paper as well: image galleries are easier to create and edit with drag-and-drop functionality, both web and mobile apps now have notifications, and Paper's search has been boosted "to help you quickly find the docs you need."

"From a strategy perspective, Paper's right at the center [of Dropbox]," Dropbox project manager Kavitha Radhakrishnan said. "We're looking at Paper as being a core part of the Dropbox experience, and our momentum over the last year should be a pretty strong signal about how seriously we're taking this."

In an in-depth dive taken by Engadget, Paper's new iOS app positioned itself as a mobile companion to its desktop counterpart. With the app, users will be able to read notifications, check out which team member is editing and participating in what document, and respond to direct messages sent their way, but any robust editing or creation tools are left out of the mobile app. Still, "basic document editing features" will allow for quick text and image edits, and the app even automatically saves any document marked as a favorite so it can be worked on and edited offline.

Dropbox is encouraging anyone interested to sign up for the open beta of Paper today, as well as downloading the free app from the iOS App Store [Direct Link] and Google Play Store.