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Is Dropbox Paper dead in the water?

Hi everyone,

I really like how Dropbox Paper works and I would love to move all my work from other alternatives to work only in Paper. But I'm a bit worried that Dropbox ignores Paper at this point and don't improve it. The last "news" to Paper was on March 5 which is a very long time ago. And I don't want to work in a tool that the developers doesn't want to improve.

Anyone know how the development around Paper will be going forward?

Thanks and have a nice day all.

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jcavazos

I completely agree with you, and it seems that we've gotten our answer with the lack of an answer.

Tinchohs

@exzrael Thanks for sharing. I had not thought about it in these terms. It's true I have not recently seen many updates to Paper itself, and from what I've been able to see in the latest Space Beta, most of the focus is in Spaces.

This being said, the way I see it, Paper is an integral part of the Spaces experience, and I cannot image it going away any time soon. I sure hope it does not aas I moved all my business workflow, for yself and my team to it over the past 4 months.

From what I understand, there is work underway for a Mac nativle Paper client with off-line support. That would be a huge improvement. I've also seen other rquests as accepted by the team, which makes me thnk there is work going on.

It would be great though, some form of clarification from Dopbox that Paper remains central and healthy in the future product roadmaps.

Just out of curiosity, what features are you hoping to see that Paper does not have today? Thanks. m.

PCMnotions

Thanks for pointing this out! Paper is now my go-to word processor, largely because of its .md compatibility and flexible functionality.
Going forward, I would really appreciate an offline mode for the Windows desktop app. It's currently available on mobile, but not on Windows OR Mac. My impression is that's the highest priority feature for Paper users; me included!

Tinchohs

I absolutely hear you. From my readings in other sections of the community, I believe a beta version is available with offline support for desktop OS. I have not been able to get my hands on it, so I cannot say for sure.

I do agree this is critical. Aside from there are small things I miss. Merging cells in tables, perhaps an automated table of contents creation feature. But not a lot more.

If I learn anything vélese I’ll be sure to come back and share.

PCMnotions

I appreciate it! I'm considering a DB Plus subscription, but the lack of an offline .Paper editor for PC is keeping me back

jcavazos

As a DB Plus subscriber for years, I'd advise against it. I've waited nearly a year to be moved to the new paper release, the "2020" version, with no luck. Support just says they have no idea and no timeline. The more I use paper, the more unorganized dropbox becomes because the two do not integrate in the "old" version. With no end in sight, I'm moving on. What other company do you know of that releases an update and then has customers waiting months to a year just to move to that update? Why wouldn't their customer support be able to give a timeline on the integration for the rest of us? Nope, I wouldn't jump into a paid plan and invest in the dropbox ecosystem after this.

Tinchohs

I hear you. It’s mind boggling that having the new version operational and stable - I know because I’ve been fortunate to use it - they don’t make it available to everyone. I really cannot imagine why…

Not sure how committed are you to this topic. I would consider and open letter to the CEO.

I’ve met a PM from the Spaces area. If I can learn anything I’ll write back.

Tinchohs

Hi everyone. I continue to shift most of my work to Paper.

Concerned with how sustainable this investment is, I reached out to a contact I have in the Product Team. I was told that Dropbox remains committed to Paper, and although they've been focused on several complementary tools that are starting to show up, Paper very much remains a core component of the offering.

This is in NO way an official communication. But I thought I would share what I've learned on my end. For what it's worth, I got around to sharing some thoughts of features I missed in Paper. Thus, I continue ahead full force behind Paper... 🙂

BTW, I like a lot some of the things DB has been releasing lately, so my confidence is high about the direction the platform is going. Enjoy and have a good day. m.

elliotwoods

I loved Paper at the start (and used Hackpad before), but after seeing Paper not improve for years, we're now considering moving to Notion.

It somehow feels like the staff of Paper Dropbox have already done that themselves.

It's sad to see it slowly die as it's a really perfect companion to Dropbox itself.

unknown

The question is who wants/needs to use it, all the companies that I have worked with normally say Dropbox Paper - "what's that" ? "Contact I.T and they will create you a temporary MS account with Share point, Office/Onedrive, Teams".... I've kicked Paper into touch some time ago. Tricky times ahead I think!

Tinchohs

Thanks! I've been in the same boat for a long time now, and continue to love the product, even without any evolution and VERY minimal bug fixes, but I wonder every day if I'll find myself out of all my notes anyway in the near future.

Have you found another solution for your use case? I have seen improvements in Google Docs that allow for collapsing and expanding content which is one of the features I like best about Paper.

Have you switched already? If so, to what and how are you liking it?

Thanks. m.