Dropbox Gives Productivity Tools a Boost

Cloud-based storage company Dropbox on Wednesday announced a handful of new productivity tools that it says will help make users more efficient while using its service.

First up is a new scanning feature that allows Dropbox mobile users to snap a picture of something—from whiteboards, receipts, and sketches— and "scan" it into their online repository. Dropbox Business users will be able to search inside those scans for certain elements, according to the company.

Dropbox Basic users will also be able to manage photos from a PC. "You'll need to connect a computer to your Dropbox account so you can better access, organize, or remove your photos and avoid running out of space," Dropbox says.

In addition, Dropbox has added a plus button to its app to help users quickly create Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Excel files from their mobile handsets and then save those documents automatically in their Dropbox.

Not surprisingly, Dropbox, which has been increasingly focusing its efforts on corporate users, also talked up some new features that might appeal to them. Now, users can right-click and share files and folders from the desktop without being forced to go into the browser to share them with others. Users can also add comments to specific parts of a file and be able to see version history, so they can go back to an earlier version if something goes awry.

Sharing has also been reworked, so users can decide with whom they share content.

Dropbox is fighting for a heavily targeted market in the enterprise. Box is one of its chief competitors, though much larger companies, including Apple, Microsoft, and Google, are also hoping corporate users choose their services to store data. One could also argue that Slack, with its file-uploading features, might also be a suitable solution for collaboration and productivity.

Still, Dropbox marches on; the company said Wednesday that it plans to deliver more productivity features as time goes on.