I’ve been playing with a couple of sites that allow you to share documents. Initially I had to find a way to share Powerpoint slides on a blog, and my solution was to use Slideshare, a free website that allows you to share Powerpoint slides.
Slideshare is simple to use and works well. You can upload presentations quickly and easily, and make them public or restricted access, by being given a URL that you then share with those you wish to have access to the presentation. Viewers can leave comments, although if your presentation is public these may be spam, a common hazard.
The winner, though, is Scribd.
With Scribd I can share other kinds of documents, not just Powerpoint, so I can keep the slides and the handouts together. PDFs, Word, Excel, so far I haven’t found a format I can’t upload, although I admit I haven’t tried very hard. It does what I need so far.
As you can see, you can import Google Docs and even create one from scratch by typing or cut-and-pasting into the text box. I haven’t tried either of these yet. I can see why sharing a Google Doc here would be easier for the people I know who inexplicably have trouble with Google Docs, particularly if you just want them to see it and not update it.
Others share documents, academic papers, even whole books on Scribd, and you can download the documents and follow the uploaders to see what else they come up with. You can also add documents of interest to collections so you can more easily find them again later, without having to download them.
You can also upload documents that you want to sell. I may do this in the future.
Have a look at Scribd and let me know what you think.