VirtualViewer® HTML5 vs PDF.js

vs

THE DOCUMENT VIEWERMATCHUP:

THE DOCUMENT VIEWERMATCHUP:

The Document Viewer Matchup: VirtualViewer® HTML5 vs. PDF.js 2

If you are reading this, you most likely know what a universal document viewer is—software that allows users to view many different document and image formats within one single interface, eliminating the need to individually open separate applications, such as Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat.

But not all document viewers are created equally. Like so many pieces of software and technology, the available viewers on the market range from free, open source software to high-end, powerful document viewers that can be integrated into existing content management systems and any other type of application that requires image or document viewing.

As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. And when it comes to the wide array of viewers on the market, it isn’t a surprise that free, default viewers that are included in browsers and other document management systems have limited amounts of feature functionality compared to more robust document viewers.

For someone simply needing to view a PDF within their internet browser, a default viewer might get the job done if you’re content to simply view and deal with the occasional unreadable document. But what about the power users? The knowledge workers in document-heavy industries such as legal, insurance, health, shipping, and government who interact with hundreds of documents daily? For these users, documents aren’t just something that need to be viewed, they also need to be managed, manipulated, annotated, distributed, and stored—among many other things.

Enter: Snowbound’s pure HTML5 and feature-rich, VirtualViewer® HTML5.

In this piece, we will be specifically looking at how Snowbound’s browser-based document viewer compares with PDF.js, a standard default document viewer from Mozilla. Let’s dive in…

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The Document Viewer Matchup: VirtualViewer® HTML5 vs. PDF.js 3

the

document

viewing

playbook

WHAT IS PDF.JS?

PDF.js or pdf.js, as the name suggests, is a JavaScript library that renders PDF files using the HTML5 Canvas. It is a free, open-

source project that was created in 2011 by the Mozilla Foundation, specifically Andreas Gal, who launched it initially as an experiment.

PDF.js can work as a part of a web application or embedded within a browser. It was originally created as a Firefox extension, but since 2013 it is now enabled by default in Mozilla Firefox and also serves as the default embedded PDF viewer in Chrome.

Getting more technical, PDF.js loads PDF documents, parses the file and associated metadata, and renders page output to a DOM node.

As for feature functionality, the PDF.js viewer is pretty bare bones. It allows users to view a single file format (PDFs) from a browser. It also provides thumbnails and simple page navigation tools, as well as a handful of basic functions (rotate, export, save as, etc).

For users who simply need to view a PDF file quickly, PDF.js is perfectly adequate for the job, but for anything beyond that, a more powerful solution is required.

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The Document Viewer Matchup: VirtualViewer® HTML5 vs. PDF.js 4

NEXT LEVEL VIEWING WITH VIRTUALVIEWER® HTML5

VirtualViewer® HTML5 is Snowbound’s flagship, award-winning product—a pure HTML5 document viewer that provides users with a faster and more robust document viewing experience, including the ability to compare, annotate, redact, and split & merge hundreds of different document formats all from a single viewing web interface.

Let’s take a look at how VirtualViewer directly compares with PDF.js in a variety of different categories…

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Feature VirtualViewer® HTML5 PDF.js

Formats Supported 100+, including MS Office, CAD & OCR PDF only

Annotations Yes (including tagging & commenting) No

Redactions Yes (and pattern-based search & redact) No

Document Comparison Yes No

Split & Merge Documents Yes No

Document Navigation Yes No

OCR Yes No

Integration w/ Existing Systems Yes (connectors for Alfresco, IBM, & Pegasystems) Yes

Active Development Yes Limited

Dedicated Support Team Yes (24x7 available) No

Price Starting at 5,000 Free

The Document Viewer Matchup: VirtualViewer® HTML5 vs. PDF.js 5

Annotation &

Redactions

Format Support

While PDF.js offers PDF support only, VirtualViewer allows users to view and manage hundreds of different document and image formats, including MS Office, PDF, TIFF, AFP, JPEG, DWG and AFP/MO:DCA. Snowbound’s robust document support also includes specialty file formats like CAD and SVG. For users needing to handle anything beyond just PDFs, a more comprehensive document support library is essential.

Advantage: Snowbound

Annotation & Redactions

The ability to securely annotate and redact documents is where VirtualViewer really separates itself from default viewers like PDF.js, which offers no such functionality. With VirtualViewer, users have a variety of powerful annotation and redaction features at their disposal, including:

• Annotation Templates (such as rubber stamps, sticky notes, highlighting, and watermarks) – allows users to quickly and efficiently collaborate on documents with other users

• Pattern-Based Redaction – allows users to search for patterns in text (social security numbers, phone numbers, credit card numbers, and e-mail addresses) and then batch redact all of the matching results for security and privacy reasons

• Annotation Commenting & Tagging – allows users to efficiently communicate with other users on documents by leaving comments and assigning tags to indicate why the annotation was placed on the page

Advantage: Snowbound

The Document Viewer Matchup: VirtualViewer® HTML5 vs. PDF.js 6

Document Navigation & Manipulation

Similarly to annotation and redaction, VirtualViewer equips users with a variety of document navigation and manipulation tools that are not available in PDF.js:

• Document Comparison & Split Screen - allows users to compare two different text documents side-by-side in a split screen and navigate through the highlighted differences

• Split & Merge Documents – allows users to split, merge, reorder, add, delete, extract, and export pages and meet their case management needs

• Multi-Page & Multi-Document Navigation – users can quickly navigate between documents and pages using tabbed windows and thumbnails

• OCR (Optical Character Recognition) - allows users to perform text and pattern search on files such as PDF, TIFF, JPEG, and PNG, as well as text selection after the document has been OCR’d

Advantage: Snowbound

Integration

When it comes to enterprise document viewing, most organizations need a viewer that can be integrated directly into their existing content management systems.

The PDF.js viewer is designed to work as a standalone webpage. While it can be integrated within a web application, it has configuration limitations once it has been placed within an iframe sandbox and often requires custom components to fully integrate.

VirtualViewer, on the other hand, has a variety of connectors for major ECM systems such as Alfresco Content Services, IBM Content Navigator, and Pegasystems. The viewer also comes with a suite of APIs that allowdevelopers to integrate the viewer with any repository, including homegrown applications and OEMs. These APIs also make it easy to configure the user interface to match the existing system.

Unique content handler technology enables VirtualViewer to be configured to access files stored in several different locations, including disparate content

management applications or file servers.

Advantage: Snowbound

The Document Viewer Matchup: VirtualViewer® HTML5 vs. PDF.js 7

Active Development & Support

Every organization in need of document viewing technology has unique requirements when it comes to support and maintenance.

Snowbound has a dedicated team of active, full-time developers and support staff who are constantly improving the product with new features and delivering 24x7 support when things go wrong.

While one would assume a viewer supported by Mozilla would have a robust set of developers contributing to its development, the numbers say otherwise. When looking at the PDF.js GitHub, it is revealed that there are only four volunteer developers actively working on it. Equally concerning, there are over 700 open issues with multiple bugs submitted every day.

Documents can be tricky business. Unusual or corrupt documents aren’t always automatically supported by a viewer and hands-on-service and access to a development team is often needed to meet an organization’s specific requirements. This needs to be taken into consideration when choosing a viewer.

Advantage: Snowbound

Price

We already mentioned that PDF.js is a free, open-source piece of technology.

Snowbound offers a variety of flexible pricing options to cater directly to each customer, including perpetual, subscription, and OEM pricing models.

Snowbound’s HTML5 Starter Kit Option starts at $5,000 and is designed to get your business up-and-running quickly and cost-effectively. Please consult questions@snowbound.com for further pricing details.

Advantage: PDF.js

The Document Viewer Matchup: VirtualViewer® HTML5 vs. PDF.js 8

Web Server / Apache Tomcat

The Alfresco Digital BusinessPlatform

AMP 1 AMP 2VirtualViewer® Content Server

VirtualViewer® HTML5

Plugin forShare

Internet / Intranet

Device

Browser

VirtualViewer® HTML5 Document Viewer

iOS

Alfresco Digital Workspace & Share**

The application server manages VirtualViewer®

Alfresco Module Package incorporates the

VirtualViewer® Content Server into the Alfresco

content repository

IncludesAlfresco platforms*,the Alfresco Digital Workspace & Share

Alfresco Module Package integrates the VirtualViewer® HTML5 viewer into the Share

application

Works on any device

Works in any browser integrated within the Alfresco application

The Alfresco Digital Workspace provides

users an interface into Alfresco’s repository

Pure HTML5 Web Client that displays

documents within the browser (no download or certi�cate required)

VirtualViewer® HTML5for

AMP - Alfresco Module Package

Share - Content Application that launches VirtualViewer®

Alfresco ships with Apache Tomcat

* Alfresco Content Services, Alfresco Process Services, Alfresco Governance Services, and Alfresco Application Development Framework (ADF)

**Supports any ADF-built application

The Document Viewer Matchup: VirtualViewer® HTML5 vs. PDF.js 9

CONCLUSION

When shopping for document viewers, it is important to make sure it has the features your organization requires to effectively manage its documents. PDF.js

might be free and possess basic viewing features, but for users in need of more robust features, a viewer like VirtualViewer HTML5 is light years ahead of the competition.

If you would like to take your document viewing to the next level, Snowbound would love to talk with you. You can contact us via any of the platforms listed on the next page.

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DocumentViewingChampion

DocumentViewingChampion

The Document Viewer Matchup: VirtualViewer® HTML5 vs. PDF.js 10

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