Have you ever received an email with a document you couldn’t open? I know I have. This is especially true if you are a Mac owner. If you don’t own Microsoft Office, it can sometimes seem like you are an outcast. Cometdocs eases the anxiety of opening an attachment.
Cometdocs not only converts commonly used file formats to other commonly used formats, it allows you to convert from file types I haven’t even heard of to PDF and other commonly used formats. Below is a quick walk through of how to use Cometdocs and why.
Using Cometdocs
To convert a file, start by navigating to Cometdocs.com. The main page is laid out in a very easy to use way. Once there, you will see something like this.
Click on the big green Browse button. This will pull up a search window letting you navigate to the document you cannot open.
Once you find the file in question, select the file by double clicking in it. You will be asked what you want to do with the file you selected. Depending on the original file type, your choices may be limited. In the picture below, I was working with a OpenOffice text document.
As you can see there are only 3 choices. When I use something like a plain text document, the available choices raise to 13.
Once you decide on the type of file you need, you will be asked to enter your email address. According to the site, it is for anti-spam reasons and your address is kept private.
You will receive a request asking you to confirm your email address. Click on the link in the email. Once you do, you will be sent an email with a link to download the newly converted document. I was instantly emailed a link to the document. Click on the link and you can download the new document.
Signing up for a free account
Signing up for a free account is super simple. Name, email twice and password twice. The reason for signing up for an account is twofold. You do not need to enter and confirm you email address each time you need to convert a document. The second reason is you will receive priority over non-registered users.
Another nice feature you get when you sign up for the free account is a file manager. Cometdocs will immediately put the file once converted into the file manager so you can access it right away. You can also store the file there. This is great if you are not on your own computer and don’t want to download the file then upload it to an email account, email it and download it later at home.
Conclusion
I think this is a great service for anyone who uses a public computer or if you need to frequently convert file times from something that may be uncommon to something a little more common like a PDF.
What do you do when you need to open a document and Microsoft Office doesn’t recognize the file type?
Cometdocs
Trevor is a freelance writer covering topics ranging from the Android OS to free web and desktop applications. When he is not writing about mobile productivity, He is coaching and playing the world’s greatest game… Soccer.
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