2025 sparked some incredible conversations across our community 👩💻. Discover the highlights and see what’s ahead in 2026.
I'm getting an error when loading Paper documents on the Dropbox site
Is anyone else having trouble opening documents in Paper? I just wanted to review a couple to determine if I was scrapping the associated projects or saving them, but the site keeps giving me errors when I try to open them. :/ I know the general... everything around Paper has been declining over the last couple years, but this is a new one for me. The error states: "How embarrassing… We experienced an error trying to load the current page." I've already emailed support, but curious how widespread it is and if it's just one more sign to abandon ship.
Text highlighting not visible when exporting to Word
When I highlight text in a Paper document in my browser and then export it to MS Word, the highlighting gets lost. Bold, italics, underlined instead are all working as expected and are retained. I tried a few tips, but none of them worked: - copying text from the browser and pasting into the Word doc directly - using incognito mode - viewing the Word document online or in the desktop app makes no difference either - exporting to pdf first and then converting to Word doc (pdf has highlights but they get misplaced when converting to Word) Devices: Macbook Air (M4), Sequoia 26.2, tried both on Firefox(146.0.1) and Safari(Version 26.2 (21623.1.14.11.9)). Dropbox Version is 239.3.8100 but as I use the browser it might not matter. Dell Pro 13 Plus Windows 11 Enterprise (24H2) Edge Browser (143.0.3650.96)
Thoughts and feedback on the new release of Dropbox Paper
This idea was already suggested many years ago and closed for inactivity. The old Dropbox Paper was easy to use, simple and was "what you see is what you get". The new Dropbox Paper introduces lots of new concepts that don't necessarily align I think with how many people have used Dropbox Paper in the past. It could just be me, but seems unlikely. Paper was a useful tool for me to organize my thoughts, write notes, journal ideas, etc... I don't usually like tools in general that try to push me to organize my life into someone else's perspective of how one should operate. I realize that other users may like that, I don't. I don't want "to-dos", "alerts", "notifications", "channels", etc... I like the "sharing" capability, and perhaps some very basic "collaboration", but to turn Dropbox Paper into a complete "Team" solution for ideating is way way beyond what I want to use it for, and I feel a little like the new version of Paper is intended to force users into a way of journaling and writing that maybe isn't what or how they are comfortable operating. Maybe these features could be useful, but on an as-needed basis, without taking away the simplicity that existed prior. It would be great if we could just have something that gives us the old Paper capabilities, with the advantage of treating a "Paper" document just like a dropbox document (which is what I thought the new implementation was all about and I was excited for). Here's the new Dropbox Paper UI. How is this intuitive? "Sections" on the left. "Create new doc" on the main page. Shouldn't I be navigating documents on the left, and each document have sections? Where am I right now? Where are all my paper documents? How do I get to them? What is a section? When I click on "My first section", nothing happens, it doesn't go anywhere. "Brainstorm: Add a topic". What's a topic? I don't brainstorm in Dropbox paper, why is that important? How would you then browse topics? Or is topics part of brainstorming? Is that a document or a "thing" thing in the new Paper application. Do the icons mean each thing on the left is a type of thing, or is it just a clever emoji you can prefix your titles with. What is "Starred" for? If I have 1000 paper documents, why am I starring them like that? Or should it just be maybe "Recent documents". Is "Starred" going to be a new virtual directory tree or a list of starred documents. I feel like it's a bit of a mess of ideas and concepts and terminology. Besides "Create new doc", nothing else makes sense to me. Maybe I am the wrong user. Maybe it was never intended to be used as a simple repository of notes, journals, etc... What's the grand old vision for Paper? Where is it heading and trying to take us as users? I really don't know how to suggest a better idea without a better understanding of what Dropbox Paper is meant to accomplish for users going forward. Is it for the enterprise going forward? Who is Dropbox Paper trying to compete with, because I thought it was pretty unique before in its simplicity. I noticed there's a slack integration? Is the product management group for the application taking their cues from businesses, or are this going to also still be for regular retail-ish consumers. Maybe that can be explained clearly. And then I can decide if it's for me or not, but as-is, I'm not sure how this is going to work for me.Dropbox Basic: Work Outside the Box
If you work with more than one person, you more than likely have needed to share a document or file to work simultaneously or receive feedback. With your Dropbox Basic account, you collaborate with friends and family and work outside of the box. Even if they do not have an account, you can still collaborate with them! Dropbox has made it easy to share files with friends and collaborate on projects. Share files with friends and family I recently learned that you can share files from Dropbox with friends or family that do not have an account. When you share a file or folder using Dropbox, the recipient receives an email with a link to the file or folder. The recipient does not need a Dropbox account to view or edit it though. Just this past week, I shared a Paper document with my sorority sister, and she was able to view and edit the file without any issue. On the file was a to-do list for the both of us and we worked together on the document. Learn more about how to add to-do list to your paper document. You can also control whether people can edit or view your files and folders when you share them and even after you share them. Edits and comments that’s made to a shared file or folder are updated live for everyone they’ve been shared with. This allows for any changes to projects to be implemented right away and ensures everyone is on the same page. Ways to Collaborate Sharing files is usually top priority when working with others. With Dropbox apps and integrations, sharing, syncing and collaboration is made easy. Whether you are sharing a school project, presentation, bachelor trip details, or planning your 30th birthday party, it is likely that you will pass the file along to someone else for their input. As sad as this may seem, Summer vacation for students and teachers will be ending in about 1 month. The time will come during the school year where you will have to participate in the good ol’ school project. The conversation of how you will collaborate to ensure everyone is working together always comes up, and you can suggest using Dropbox. With your Dropbox account, you can collaborate with your school project team members that do not have a Dropbox account. You can use word processing applications such as G-Suite and Microsoft Office Online. Learn more about how to use these integrations. This will allow for an automatic sync after each team member contributes to the project. Your Dropbox account allows you to collaborate with multiple team members from multiple locations at one time. It’s a big year for celebrating! Gathering in large groups has finally become a norm since 2020. People have planned large parties and events to celebrate weddings and birthdays. To do this, you will likely collaborate with friends and family virtually. Don’t forget that you can use Dropbox Paper to create a guest-list, or a to-do list where you can tag the other party hosts. You can even create the invites with Dropbox’s Canva integration. The beauty of using your Dropbox account for tasks like this is that you can use 3 different applications and all users can access files in one place. Things to know when collaborating When collaborating on a file, Dropbox has features that allows the file to be shared and protected when multiple people are editing. Dropbox has collaboration tools for sharing work, and guards old documents by locking the file or creating a conflicted copy. Here are some tips and tricks you can use to collaborate. Create link: Create a link with Dropbox that allows you to easily share the files with friends and teammates. To create a link: Open the Dropbox folder in File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac). Right-click or command-click the file or folder you'd like to share. Click Share…. If a link hasn't been created, click Create link. The link is copied to your clipboard. Create a to-do list: When saving, sharing and collaborating on files and folders, you can add a checkbox that becomes tasks for the people you are working with. When you or someone else with permission click a checkbox, the line of text next to it is crossed out with a strikethrough. Mention someone: To notify collaborators, click the @ icon. This allows you to insert the email address or name of someone in your Dropbox contacts. The person is notified by email and their Dropbox account shows that they have been tagged in a folder. This is a helpful and easy way to communicate asynchronously. Your Dropbox Basic account is a great way to work with family and friends. Leave a comment and tell us how you use Dropbox to collaborate with family and friends!Making a spooky Halloween playlist on Dropbox Paper
It’s getting really close to one of my absolute favourite times of year, Halloween. As always, I’ll be building an eerie playlist to listen to while I decorate my house with spooky stuff to entertain the trick or treaters who call at my door. Using Paper to make a playlist This year, I decided to ask some friends for help curating my playlist, to make this process a little easier I created a Halloween paper doc and shared it with everyone and asked them to add their favourite Halloween songs. Dropbox Paper has lots of features to help make your planning easier! Adding Spotify links to a Paper doc I’ll be using Spotify to make my playlist and it’s super easy for people to add a link to Spotify directly to a Paper document. Here’s how to do it Click the Insert media button on the menu bar at the bottom of the page Scroll down the left-hand side of the pop up window until you see the Spotify button Copy and paste the Spotify link and press enter Click the Add to doc button I know that not all of my friends use Spotify, but anyone else who wants to add to the doc can do so by adding a YouTube link, by using the same method, with the only difference being you choose the YouTube option on the pop up window after you click the Insert media button. Our top spooky selections So, to help get you in the mood for Spooky season 👻 here’s some of the tracks that have made their way onto this year’s Playlist so far. Tell us what you think My playlist needs your help, please let me know what you think of it so far and add links to any tracks you’d like to see added.
