You churn out PDFs day after day, but where do they go? Is anybody reading them? Three third-party software tools help you answer those questions, and more.As PDF use increases, more and more folks are looking for solutions that will not only track where their PDFs end up online, but also provide detailed statistics on what is being viewed within those documents. Below, three third-party software options for helping you do just that.
Remote Approach
Canada-based Remote Approach's PDF Measurement Suite 2.0 features not only tools to analyze the average time spent per document, but also time spent per page in the document. This enables users to determine both how documents are being read and also how they are being read.
PDF Measurement Suite 2.0 enables users to tag their PDF documents; the distributed PDF then automatically interacts with Remote Approach's real-time, online reporting system. Users of the solution can see if their documents are being read, and if they are being forwarded and if so, what channels are being used for distribution to others.
In addition, PDF Measurement Suite 2.0 can also perform geographic analysis, XML export, and segment analysis.
For users who want to track embedded advertising in PDFs this solution provides clear statistics on the ad views within the PDFs.
The company offers a hosted solution, licensed version and a SMB version which offers stats on up to 20 PDFs, as well as a professional version with enhanced measuring capabilities.
To take your PDFs for a trial run go here for a 14 day demo trial.
ReadNotify
Another PDF tracking solution comes from ReadNotify.com, and features document and PDF tracking. To use the service requires you to sign up for a free ReadNotify account and then you simply email your PDF. ReadNotify provides a personal tracking page for each unique user and when the PDF is opened, users receive an email ReadNotification.
Users can also login to check the status of any PDF that is being tracked. The tracking service also provides the date, time, location, and ISP for each viewing of the PDF and recipient/reader information.
In addition, it can show when the document is printed or saved, as well as whether or not it was forwarded. Users can also receive details on which pages of the PDF were read and the length of time the PDF was read.
A free trial of the service is available at the company Web site here .
PDFtracker.de
A third tracking solution pdftracker.de is offered as a free service and enables users to embed Javascript code in PDFs generated by Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0.
To use this free beta service, users upload a PDF file to the server for the Java embedding, and then download it again after the file has been processed. The new file returns with Javascript code embedded in the PDF for you to track its viewing and usage. The links in the PDFs are not available in the finished document.
Users assign the document ID with a unique name that will be used for accessing the tracking reports associated with the file. There is also an option feature button that lets you choose whether or not you want the PDF to send an email.
With the tool, users can track the id, sessionid, timestamp, local date of client, IP address, host address, forms version, operating system, language, URLand the number of plug-ins available to the viewer.
For a test drive go here .
Document Management 
