Noobpreneur.com, a website offering resources for entrepreneurs and small business owners, has just launched a new feature: a PDF-specific search engine. The PDF Search Engine is essentially a meta-search engine that combines PDF results from a range of general search engines.
Given the sheer amount of content on the web these days, it can be useful to filter results based on, for example, file format. Now, I feel like I should point out that it is possible to apply this sort of filter using good ol' Google. All you need to do is include "filetype:pdf" in your search query if you only want to see PDF-based search results. For example, if you wanted to search for the PDF version of News Corp's annual report, you could go to Google and enter "News Corp annual report filetype:PDF". To search for other file formats, you just need to replace the "PDF" with the appropriate file extension (e.g., "filetype:doc" for Word documents).
You can also use this technique to exclude certain file types by adding a minus-sign before the "filetype:" (e.g., "-filetype:pdf"). Not that you'd ever want to exclude PDFs from your searches, of course!
Now, I should clarify, I think that tools like Noobpreneur's search engine are a great idea. There is certanily a place for tools that make tasks that are already possible simpler. After some quick testing with Noobpreneur.com's PDF Search Engine, I have to say that I like it, but the results are slightly less impressive than Google's. When I searched for News Corp annual reports, the top few results from both search engines were News Corp annual reports, but only Google included the most recent report (2010).
Overall, I'd suggest that Noobpreneur's search engine is quick, convenient, and a good fit for people who, as the site's title suggests, are a tad less tech-savvy. For the most up-to-date results, however, it's hard to beat Google, which remains the 300-lb gorilla of search.
Thanks to Magazinify.com, it's possible to have web articles delivered right to your inbox in PDF form. If that weren't enough, the nice folks at CNET have been nice enough to publish a step-by-step guide about how to set this all up using just a little time and a free Magazinify account.
OK, so you want to stamp your document. Maybe you need to give reviewers some advice about the document's status or sensitivity. This tip from author Ted Padova demonstrates how to add stamps with the Stamp Tool along with related comments.
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