Google has just added a new option to their search results that, with one click, lets you view PDF documents. No more ugly HTML previews or saving and opening PDFs in external applications.
. The new links are based on the same technology that’s available in Google Docs and Gmail, as well as to webmasters through the Google Docs viewer.
Google has been rolling this technology out to the search results page since July and is busy adding “Quick View” links to all PDF files in their database. According to their blog they are halfway at 50% now.
For serious PDF reading you might still want to revert to Apple’s Preview or Acrobat reader on a PC as the Web interface for viewing PDFs looks fairly rudimentary. That must also be why Google has decided to brand this “Quick View” instead of just “View”:
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