Viewing online PDF files has always been an awkward experience for user because of the wait as the software gets loaded, followed by an alien interface, framed within the browser window, that meant actions like searching and printing were different. Though the loading time has been diminished these days with the latest Adobe Viewer but still PDFs don't feel like native Web documents.
Since PDFs are international standards, companies are putting their best to make it a hassle-free task to view PDFs over the web. Google has already developed its online PDF engine which renders almost all PDFs and now Mozilla has begun a project of its own called pdf.js, a PDF reader that uses Web technology, not native software, to render PDFs in the browser. On one end Google is working on native code PDF capabilities and on the other end Mozilla is working on an approach that uses the browser's engine.
The project uses JavaScript, the programming language of Web pages and Web applications, to interpret the PDF coding. It involves improved Firefox's JavaScript execution speed and HTML5 Canvas technology for two-dimensional drawing.
Though there are some drawbacks in the present model, for example browser technology is by no means immune to security problems and the low level interface doesn't easily allow people select text and high quality printing. But Mozilla is working to get around these drawbacks and it may even use PDF renderer using another Web technology, Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) to render a quick version using Canvas.
The project pdf.js will not only improve user's experience with PDFs but it will ultimately phase out the technology.
Since PDFs are international standards, companies are putting their best to make it a hassle-free task to view PDFs over the web. Google has already developed its online PDF engine which renders almost all PDFs and now Mozilla has begun a project of its own called pdf.js, a PDF reader that uses Web technology, not native software, to render PDFs in the browser. On one end Google is working on native code PDF capabilities and on the other end Mozilla is working on an approach that uses the browser's engine.
The project uses JavaScript, the programming language of Web pages and Web applications, to interpret the PDF coding. It involves improved Firefox's JavaScript execution speed and HTML5 Canvas technology for two-dimensional drawing.
Though there are some drawbacks in the present model, for example browser technology is by no means immune to security problems and the low level interface doesn't easily allow people select text and high quality printing. But Mozilla is working to get around these drawbacks and it may even use PDF renderer using another Web technology, Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) to render a quick version using Canvas.
The project pdf.js will not only improve user's experience with PDFs but it will ultimately phase out the technology.
No comments:
Post a Comment