This is a sponsored article and was made possible by DocHipo. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence, even when a post is sponsored.
Starting with DocHipo
I’ll preface this review by stating that I spent 20 years as a graphic designer, so I can be a little picky. Because DocHipo allows for collaboration, I asked Phil South to collaborate with me, as he, too, spent some of his career in graphic design. To get started, you only need to visit the DocHipo website and sign up for an account. You can add your company and multiple users. You can also add multiple companies. I create graphics for my articles here on Make Tech Easier as well as a non-profit fraternal organization I belong to where I send out weekly news, so I set up two companies and two users. After I added my collaborator, Phil, he signed in, and this led to me becoming the Super Admin.
Creating a Document
Hit the top icon on the left to create a document. This gives you a choice of templates, including business essentials, general purpose, web banner, or social graphic. I stuck with web banner, since this is what I create for Make Tech Easier and for the non-profit, though Phil explored the business card, calendar, and book cover templates. In the web banner option, there is a choice of blog banner, email header, Facebook cover, LinkedIn banner, etc. Each of those has a selection of free templates and Pro templates. There’s also a blank template for freestyling it. Before I go any further, I’ll preface this by saying I do all my work on an iPad. The web app was not the most mobile-friendly. I couldn’t have done it without a trackpad device. It was the only way to expand the size of the elements in the document, though I could move elements with the cursor keys. Several widgets on the left add text, background, image, shapes, etc. To date, all of my creations have either used a background or image, with another image or text on top. The template size is preset but can be changed. I changed it to 1350 x 675 pixels for the featured image graphic for this review. I added the image for the background, which is simply a screenshot from when I was signing up on the web app. Any image can have the background taken out of it as well. It’s an immediate process. A picture can be added and then made transparent so that another image or a background can be added behind it. This worked great. While I didn’t use it for the DocHipo image, I did use it in the following image. I had the words “START STREAMING” and the remote on a white background. I dropped out the white and inserted this background that matched the colors of the type pretty well. Next, I added text. This is another area where I needed the trackpad. I needed to double-click to edit. Color, font, size, alignment, etc., can be changed. I’ll also add that if text is pasted in, it doesn’t allow you to make changes to the font, size, etc. Everything needs to be typed in to the web app. With the text added, I decided to try adding an icon and added a pencil. Ultimately, I didn’t like it and chose to go without. Happy with my result, it was time to export it. The choices given for exporting are: Share, Publish, Preview, Present, Download, and MailChimp. Download added easily to my Photos app and gave me choices of JPG or PNG and high-res, though the latter is only a Pro option. I send the weekly newsletter for the non-profit in MailChimp, and this worked great. DocHipo paired up easily with MailChimp and inserted my images directly into my files. One option that really comes in handy is “Versions.” You can roll back time with the choices of renaming an earlier version or restoring it. When creating, it’s a great option, as sometimes your choices don’t work out as well as you planned, such as the pencil.
Collaboration
The trend in productivity software and apps over the past few years has been collaboration, especially after the pandemic. DocHipo shines here, too. I can click the Documents tab and see all graphics that have been created in all companies, just one company, created by me, or shared with me. I can preview, edit, share, clone, publish, transfer, present, download, or delete from here. To test out the collaboration features, I opened a document created by my collaborator Phil and could make changes to it. I could also leave a comment for him.
Pricing
If you plan to just do occasional creations, the free version of DocHipo will be adequate. But if you plan to create regularly, you’ll want to go with the Pro version. The Pro version of DocHipo costs $10/monthly, but if you pay yearly, it’s only $7.50/monthly. As much as I’ve used DocHipo the past few weeks, it’s worth it to me.
Final Thoughts
I really liked all the options of DocHipo and how easy it is to create, collaborate, and share. Again, I’m a tough graphic design critic, but I found this web app to be useful. It is basic as far as typography options, but there are other much more pricey software options for that. For most people and situations, DocHipo is enough. I only wish it worked more intuitively on mobile, though I was informed that DocHipo will be releasing a fully mobile responsive app around the beginning of next year. Get started withyour own creations for business and personal use on the DocHipo website. All screenshots taken by Laura Tucker.
