Comments on: Will multi-touch technology find its way in the workplace?

By: -Kevin

-Kevin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:16:44 +0000

I would be more than happy to give ideas for artistic clients that use .PDFs for things like sheet music chord charts etc. If you want to send me a liscense or what not. If not just send email address and I’ll tell you what I learned with the trial.

Just some background. I am a user of 3 generations of iPhone who uses .pdfs in live music situations on laptops. I also use .pdfs in a database on iphone so I have access to all songs no matter where I am. As my needs are such I will be buying the iPad for this. I have used most if not all .pdf programs on the iphone and ipod touch. Jailbroken software included. I also have some experience testing open source software and pushing them to the limits etc.

Good luck, and thanks for the article its really great.

Ps. Microsoft certified Mac and PC user

By: Eric Worrall (GGS)

Eric Worrall (GGS) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:42:55 +0000

Hi Amit, Thanks for the ideas. The technology behind multi-touch/gesture interaction has great potential but only if it gives customers real productivity gains; so it’s great to hear input from real customers. Adding functionality to the product for the sake of it is against the gDoc vision, we want add features that really enhance our customer ability to work with documents. Thanks again for the feedback.

By: Amit Shindore

Amit Shindore — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 06:22:33 +0000

Thanks Eric,

Here is my take on touch gestures. The most widely used touch gestures (for now) are the pinch (zoom in and zoom out), flip next and previous, double tap to zoom into a specific region of a page / picture.

Assuming that we want to target a customer who is using a multi-touch tablet, you may want to ‘definitely’ have the ones I have listed above.

I used the application gDoc Fusion and there is a lot of scope to add touch gestures; for e.g.
- changing different Views of the document (Full Page, Fit Width, Print Preview),
- dock / undock toolbars,
- drag and drop text / pictures (for copy paste) and pinch – drag – drop text / pictures (for cut paste);
- make drawing / picture touch enabled (rotate, erase, crop); a few short-cut menus would help.

- adding touch enabled commenting / sticky notes would be fun too.

Let me know if you find this useful… I am continuing to use the gDoc for my PDF needs.

- Amit

By: Avinash Jadhav

Avinash Jadhav — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:09:07 +0000

I had good experience with gDoc Fusion…though I used the beta version which is available on Global Graphics site. It is really an useful tool to have PDF file from any kind of word file (means .doc or .docx), generally it was an problem with me for transferring data from my side to client side in word format as by default I am having word file extension as .docx which generally not opened @ client side so many time I have to again save the copy as word file in word format of compatible with old windows office (.doc format).
But with this tool it save lots of time. As whenever I create an report i saved them in default format and with the help f gDoc I used to create an PDF file and send it across, with this kind of reporting format counter part also impressed .
Though I had problem while I was using the gDoc first time, also reported the issues with the tool to global graphics team.

By: Eric Worrall

Eric Worrall — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:39:53 +0000

Hi Amit, Thanks for the feedback and sound advice. I think the multi-touch/voice technology marriage could catch on in mobile devices but I’m not yet convinced about it on a desktop or laptop. I’ll send you a license key so you can have a play with a full version of gDoc Fusion. Let me know your view on multi-touch gestures that could make gDoc Fusion more productive.
- Eric

By: Amit Shindore

Amit Shindore — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:02:10 +0000

No doubt multi-touch is here to stay and companies that have User Experience in their DNA are sure to exploit the best out of multi-touch.

It is going to be a big challenge to ‘get-it-right’ the first time.

While QuickOffice / Microsoft Office are still evolving on touch interfaces like the iPhone and the Pocket PC, you could get it right if you put more thought, more scenarios and more usability tests before you actually release. This should not stop you from experimenting.

I have the following suggestions :

1. Setting up Usability labs and hire some touch /iPhone addicts for inputs

2. (Re) Introduce Voice Commands. I know this is an old technology and needs loads and loads of refinement. But I bet this will be a successful marriage (Multi-Touch + Voice) ala, the mouse and the keyboard.

Do let me know. I am all excited with the multi-touch idea.

- Amit