Ask HN: What (do you think) Scribd / DocStoc uses to convert pdf/docs into swf?

#1

Post by buggy_code » Fri, May 22, 2009, 5:24 PM UTC

(And what are the best open source alternatives).

We're setting up something private for sharing documents.

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: What (do you think) Scribd / DocStoc uses to convert pdf/docs into swf?

#2

Post by buggy_code » Fri, May 22, 2009, 5:34 PM UTC

edit: some variant of swftools ? others have more info?

#3

Post by notaddicted » Fri, May 22, 2009, 5:37 PM UTC

I found in a job posting:

iPaper is an unusually complex Flash application with many highly technical components.

So it looks proprietary.

#4

Post by mindhacker » Fri, May 22, 2009, 7:06 PM UTC

Looks like they started with something like http://www.swftools.org/ and developed a custom viewer for the swf files.

For doc and other formats, one can use openoffice commandline tools to convert them all to pdf.

edit: Some history - http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9874527-2.html Scribd initially used the now discontinued flash paper.