DocQ – Edit, Share, Store, and Sign PDFs Online
There isn’t much new in digitally sharing and storing documents. The hot new trend is in collecting digital signatures to authenticate documents without a single piece of paper being used to print them. This is where DocQ.com moves into the market.
The site offers digital document storage, collaboration, and, of course, signing. It securely stores documents in PDF form, allows editing and annotating so you can collaborate with associates to finalize terms, and it collects digital signatures to finalize the documents.
The interface for DocQ is nice and, despite it’s dark color theme, is actually not brooding and is easy on the eyes. Multi-page documents appear on the screen with simple graphic pointers at the bottom to allow easy flipping from one page to the next. The white documents on a black background actually makes it easier to read on-screen.
To edit, everything is done on-screen in a fairly intuitive “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) interface. You can highlight, ad sticky notes, ad signatures, insert shapes and identifiers, and so forth. Since the actual text isn’t edited by anyone but the document’s owner (originator), this makes for easy collaboration as changes are only suggested by the readers.
On that front, multiple access rights can be granted so that the document can be shared with several people with differing permissions. Legal agreements, for instance, might not really need the input from Herb in Marketing, but he should be kept in the loop, so he has access to read-only. Whereas Bob in Legal has full annotation rights and his boss, Jane, is the document’s ultimate author.
The site is well done and worth trying if you have need of something like this. The free trial is indefinite, but the documents are watermarked until you pay for the service. Plans start at $6.99 per month and go up from there, tiered by usage.
