Let’s say you’re searching for something online in the PDF format.  You type in the title (if you knew the file you were looking for) or the subject (if you had no clue what was out there on the subject) and perhaps, even type in “filetype:pdf” (for those who are seasoned Google users). 

Then, depending on the popularity of your search topic, you’d get over 10 billion relevant results, each listed by title. When combing through the actual PDF file results, you would essentially have 2 options: click on the “View as HTML” button or download the PDF to view it. 

While the former stripped out the PDF’s formatting that left gaping holes in the text, the latter was something akin to buying a car without test driving it. You had to blindly download the file (sans scanning, sans security) before previewing just exactly what was in the file. Neither option was ideal, but they were  good enough for getting the job done.

Cue in Google’s new third option: “Quick View”.

In recent years, PDFs have become a great medium for keeping printable records of transactions, procedures and work flows to ensure your digital content is safely communicated between two parties.

The authenticity, reliability and portability of PDF documents, are now compelling big tech giants to include PDF technology to their web applications in one form or another.

Google, which has a huge presence on the internet itself, can’t ignore the huge acceptance of PDFs by Internet users. In recent years, Google has been paying special attention towards enhancing the capacity of search engines to index and read documents in the PDF format.

Moreover, Google has also enabled the use and creation of PDF documents. Take for example the online PDF reader for Google Book Search and Google Patent Search. This allows users to read PDFs directly and conveniently. And even GoogleDocs has been improved with PDF integration. You can upload PDF files from your hard disk or a URL.

However, it isn’t enough, is it? What about other Google apps?

Well, believe it or not, here’s a simple trick you can use to turn your Google Reader into a PDF creator.