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Comment by ThrustVectoring | Hacker News Reader

This looks like duplicated effort to me. Upload the pdf to Google Drive, set the permissions to "people with link can view", and share the link it gives you. Alternatively, there's a publish to web option - they're identical in this use case. I already do something similar on my portfolio page - I have a link that downloads a pdf version of my resume on Google Drive.

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This comment is almost identical to one posted when Dropbox first premiered on HN. They were saying Dropbox was duplicated effort. Interface matters a lot.

That's a great point. The exact differences between the work flows:

1. Adds drag-and-drop to choose the file to upload

2. Cleaner permissions structure

3. The button is much bigger, and there's fewer options to do other things

4. Adds galleries to look at collections of PDF files

5. Exact same number (6) of mouse clicks to copy a link to a hosted pdf to clipboard

6. Removes log-in requirement (though to be fair, it's really easy to stay logged in to Google services)

It seems to me to be a much smaller difference to the UI difference with Dropbox - the automatic mirroring and context menu actions are huge.

> (though to be fair, it's really easy to stay logged in to Google services)

Not particularly easy for the three-in-four Internet users who don't have any form of Google account, though...

Yup. I would have never thought about using Google drive to share PDF publicly. Now that I know, still not sure I would. You're damn right, interface does matter.

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