Whether or not you’re a fan of the great website registration bypassing service BugMeNot, I think you’re really going to like a new service from the same shop called PdfMeNot. (username: stateless password: systems until Thursday) It creates a Flash display of any PDF document! No need to download the document and launch another application to view it anymore – PdfMeNot lets you convert PDFs by upload, URL, bookmarklet or a script entered into a website’s page if you’re the publisher.
I’ve added the bookmarklet to my browser toolbar and may never download another PDF again.
Unless I want to search inside it, keep it for my records or read it on my phone – but you get the idea, publishers push PDFs more often than they need to.
Here’s a quick way you can try it out: Go to the tools page, drag the javascript bookmarklet to your toolbar, then go to this Creative Commons page where there’s a link to a press release from yesterday in PDF format. Click on your bookmarklet, then click the PDF link. Voilà! I love it!
See also Issuu, which is more complicated and does other things, but also works magic with PDF files.
