It’s been a while since this blog has been graced with new content, but it doesn’t mean we’ve been off duty. The Buzzword team is plowing ahead with new functionality – some features just released in our latest version, which will be discussed below. We’re also working on some longer term functionality that will roll out over the course of the next several releases.
By the way, this is officially our seventh “Preview” release in nine months, so we’re staying on track for a release every 6 weeks or so. This is also our first official Adobe release – we’re looking forward to many more!
The Preview 7 Release contains both updates to the editor as well as some system-level functionality:
Editor updates:
- Background colors in text and table cells. Now you can color the header rows of a table, for example, to make them stand out, or shade just an individual cell to draw attention to its contents. We’ve also added text highlighting. In each case, choose the target cell(s) or text, go to the appropriate toolbar (table or formatting), and click on the additional color picker located there.
- We’ve also added some other functionality and conveniences in the Editor, like providing a visual sample of each font on our font drop down menu. We’ve also added strikethrough style for formatting. Finally, this version has check box lists – a useful way to keep track of tasks.
System changes:
- Preview 7 now provides status on each user with whom you’ve shared the document – whether the document has been opened and if so, if the current version was opened or an older version. This is a more profound feature than it first appears, and a great way to ensure that everyone is up to date.
- We heard that occasionally people had some trouble getting invitations to others via email, especially due to spam filters. In Preview 7, when you first invite someone to a Buzzword document, you can copy the invitation link to your clipboard. So you can email the link yourself, or send via IM.
- We’ve also added import and export support for the new Word format, .docx, as well as plain text (.txt). We’ve also added the ability to export a Buzzword document to HTML, so you can post your Buzzword documents to web pages or blogs.
- Finally, the document organizer will now remember the document sort order from one session to the next.
Thanks to everyone who provided feedback – there were thousands and the feedback was, without exception, positive, supportive and helpful. We’re reading every message, and still responding to most of them, thanks especially to our hard-working QA team (Bob and Ellen) and product manager (Lisa). As dedicated as these folks are, their efforts won’t scale as we see Buzzword adoption continue to rise, so please also visit our forums at forum.buzzword.com.
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