Ever wanted to quickly get a couple of people together looking at the same document online and being able to make edits and collaborate on it? Maybe you want a family member to check out your resume and make edits in real time while you chat about it? Or maybe you are having a meeting and want everyone to take notes into a single document so everyone can see and edit the text?
Sync.in is a really cool web service and desktop app that basically lets you collaborate in realtime on a text document. It’s free for basic use, but cost a little money if you want some Pro features. Unless you feel you’ll need this tool often, the free version is fine for most uses. So how does it work?
From the main page, click on Create a new Public Note. This will bring you to the main collaboration screen as shown below:
On the left side is the word processor interface where anyone you share the note with can type in text. The cool thing is that each person will have their own color when typing text, so you can quickly see who is typing what. Click the Share this note button to quickly share the note via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. You can also chat in real time with all the participants using the chat window.
If you click on the Time Slider button in the toolbar, you’ll be able to scroll through the changes made to the document over time. It’s basically a timeline of the edits made to the document, which is pretty neat.
Another very good feature is marked revisions. You can basically save previous versions of the file and then browse through the various revisions in the toolbar.
You can also export the note out in HTML format or plain text. You can also bookmark the file, which will basically create a file on your computer and when you open that file, it will load the note in your web browser. Lastly, as long as you have the share link, you can come back and view that note at any time. As far as I can tell, once you create a note, it is permanent. As far as I can tell, the URL will remain active and you can access it at any time.
Overall, it’s a pretty nice service, even the free version. If you really like it and plan to use it often, you can always upgrade to Pro, which also includes a desktop client for creating, collaborating and managing notes. Enjoy!