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Pdf.js: PDF Reader in JavaScript

mozilla.github.com

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Re: Pdf.js: PDF Reader in JavaScript

#81

Post by chrismonsanto »

jowiar wrote: post #3

1) From a technical perspective, this is damn cool - exceedingly well done. Color me very impressed. 2) I hope I never actually see anyone using this on a website, attempting to make things "easier." Between Scribd and Slideshare, and Adobe trying to force its hideous crash-prone plugins into my browser, there are already enough people making a mess out of what is one of the more well-thought-out aspects of OS X. Giv…

I wouldn't say it's exceedingly well done... yet. It is so slow it is unusable on my OC'd core i5, and can't search pages you haven't looked at yet. The last one is a deal breaker for me. Really the only reason I use chrome for my day to day browser is for the PDF plugin. Once this project matures I'm out.

Re: Pdf.js: PDF Reader in JavaScript

#83

Post by davidguetta222 »

gbraad wrote: post #82

Next up, a good ePub reader for use in firefox and firefoxos. Breaking free of the only two rendering engines in use...

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Re: Pdf.js: PDF Reader in JavaScript

#85

Post by hirenj »

famoreira wrote: post #55

This is pretty cool! Anyone knows if there is support for PDF annotations?

Looks like it has basic support for annotations, but is limited in its scope. I'm hoping I can use this to read annotations from PDFs so I can hook it into a journal paper reading/organisation workflow.

Re: Pdf.js: PDF Reader in JavaScript

#86

Post by bpatrianakos »

I came across this a few months ago while trying to implement a solution for turning HTML into PDFs server side. This is definitely cool and useful but it's usefulness is limited for now as native PDF readers on the desktop are preferable. Even on iOS the built in reader is nicely done. Chrome on Windows and Mac always opens PDFs in a tab and handles it well I think. That said, this can definitely be of use in Chromebook type situations. I'm sure it'll end up in Firefox OS too which I have hi expectations for. The awesome thing about Firefox OS is that it's all JavaScript and good old fashioned web technologies under the hood so this will fit right in.

So alas, I'm still searching for an easy way to convert HTML to PDF server or client side. I haven't looked at the code yet but I do wonder if one could get that functionality out of this if they wrestled with it enough. (I know there are other ways to turn HTML to PDF but a client or server side script to do so really is the best solution for my situation).

Re: Pdf.js: PDF Reader in JavaScript

#87

Post by bpatrianakos »

jcheng wrote: post #14
jpallen wrote: post #9

I'm really excited for this for http://www.sharelatex.com and other similar sites that are actually generating a PDF for you. With native PDF viewers there is no way to interact with the viewer via javascript and even just having the viewer stay on the same page when your reload a document (with minor changes) is impossible. Pdf.js means that we'll be able to do this easily, as well as other cool things like letting…

Our web-based IDE[1] does exactly this, including syncing between source and PDF, using PDF.js. Works great for the most part! [1] http://rstudio.org

Are you guys actually generating PDFs from user input? If so, I'd be really interested in finding out how you do it if you don't mind sharing. I've found a number of apps that allow you to generate PDFs server side but often the installation is near impossible (dependency issues), e rendering is not good enough, or the API makes using it with a web app clunky. I did find a solution (don't recall the name) that actually used Webkit to render web pages and then turned them into PDFs but I was never able to get it to work in an app. It only seemed to work some of the time and only through ssh. But if you can't say, then I can respect that.

Re: Pdf.js: PDF Reader in JavaScript

#88

Post by adityab »

bpatrianakos wrote: post #86

I came across this a few months ago while trying to implement a solution for turning HTML into PDFs server side. This is definitely cool and useful but it's usefulness is limited for now as native PDF readers on the desktop are preferable. Even on iOS the built in reader is nicely done. Chrome on Windows and Mac always opens PDFs in a tab and handles it well I think. That said, this can definitely be of use in Chrome…

This is about PDF to HTML conversion.

Re: Pdf.js: PDF Reader in JavaScript

#89

Post by bpatrianakos »

notatoad wrote: post #70
thebigshane wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I've seen custom contextmenus generated on pages[0] that override the built-in context menu but for some reason I've yet to come across a page[1] that adds to the existing context menu until today. [0] replacing example: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/menu/tablecontextmen... [1] appending example: https://bug617528.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=554...

>but for some reason I've yet to come across a page that adds to the existing context menu until today. the reason is likely because browser compatibility for the context menu js api is pretty minimal [1]. firefox can use it on pages that are only going to be displayed in firefox, but for the internet at large it's pretty useless. [1] http://caniuse.com/menu

What about Google Docs? Their context menu seems to work cross browser (even on ie9!). Maybe my assumption that they're using HTML5 for this is wrong but if I'm right then what you see on Gdocs is a complete replacement of the regular menu which is pretty cool but also quite annoying for me at times. Please correct me if I'm wrong (which is very likely).

Re: Pdf.js: PDF Reader in JavaScript

#90

Post by bpatrianakos »

adityab wrote: post #88
bpatrianakos wrote: post #86

I came across this a few months ago while trying to implement a solution for turning HTML into PDFs server side. This is definitely cool and useful but it's usefulness is limited for now as native PDF readers on the desktop are preferable. Even on iOS the built in reader is nicely done. Chrome on Windows and Mac always opens PDFs in a tab and handles it well I think. That said, this can definitely be of use in Chrome…

This is about PDF to HTML conversion.

Right, I got that. But when I found it I was hoping it could work in the opposite direction.
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