File delivery service YouSendIt announced Thursday that it has released a plug-in (download) for Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007 that will allow users to send any file from Word, Excel, or PowerPoint to recipients through the company's service.
Based on my testing, the plug-in, which requires registration to download, works quite well. After surfing over to the company's plug-in page, which is already populated with other plug-ins for iPhoto, Outlook, Photoshop, and others, I downloaded the file in seconds.
Once installed, the plug-in embeds itself in Microsoft Office. On my version of Office 2007, I found YouSendIt's plug-in added under the "Send to" menu, allowing me to send a file through the YouSendIt service without requiring me to surf to the company's page.
As soon as I was ready to send a file and clicked the "YouSendIt" button, the company's Express software (download) popped-up immediately, asking me to input my username and password. Once complete, the process mimics YouSendIt's online version: I input the e-mail address of the recipient, decided how long the document should be preserved for, and sent it. A progress bar displays how much time is left before the document is sent.
There's not much to the YouSendIt plug-in. In essence, it provides you with another alternative to send files. And although I usually send documents and spreadsheets through Office's "Send to email" feature, YouSendIt's plug-in came in handy when I needed to send a large PowerPoint presentation that the recipient's e-mail couldn't handle.
Just like the online service, the recipient receives an e-mail containing a link to download the file, which saves them some valuable in-box space.
Overall, the process to send files was quick and I didn't recognize any lag time between starting the process and completing the file transfer. That said, YouSendIt capped the file size limit at 2GB, which might upset those who need to send huge PowerPoint presentations. But for most us, 2GB is more than enough.
YouSendIt's Office plug-in isn't necessarily a "must have" tool, since I found that more often than not, sending e-mail through Word or Excel is sufficient. But because there are larger files that sometimes crop up, it doesn't hurt to have it installed just in case.
The Office plug-in is available now on YouSendIt's site as a free download after registration. You can also download it from CNET by following this link.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
I've found that I frequently use the large file transfer service YouSendIt to send big files, videos, scans, and pictures. And I've taken to recommending the service to others when I hear about a problem getting a file from one place to another. That's rare--usually the Web services I like the most are a bit too rickety to recommend to people with real lives and jobs.
But one thing about YouSendIt has always bugged me: the need to go to the browser to upload a file for transfer. I hate browser uploaders. Fortunately, the company just released a desktop app, YouSendIt Express, that lets you drag files from your system into it, from which it will then upload the file to the transfer service. And if your connection drops, it will resume the upload when it can. It's available for PC and Mac.
The company also has a plug-in for Outlook, which makes perfect sense. Except I have yet to meet an Outlook plug-in that doesn't somehow degrade the mail application itself. So, I haven't tried it and I have no intention to.
I do wish YouSendIt's pricing structure for occasional users was more reasonable. The free service is very limited, but what do you want for nothing? The problem is that the lowest-cost paid account is $9.99 a month. I'd like to see a per-use fee or a much cheaper monthly fee. For occasional use, $120 a year is just too steep.
But it's still a great app.
YouSendIt is a Webware 100 finalist. See all the products in its category.
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