If you are running jPDFViewer, Qoppa’s PDF viewing component, in an applet inside the browser, you may have heard that some browsers are discontinuing support for Java applets. Specifically, some browsers are discontinuing support for the NPAPI plugin interface, which is what the Java applet container uses to run inside the browser. This means that you will not be able to run jPDFViewer in this manner on browsers that are making this change.
We have come up with a few alternatives to continue to use our PDF technology within your web application:
Run jPDFViewer inside a Webstart application.
Webstart application are very similar to applets, they can be launched from a browser, and can connect back to your server to retrieve PDF documents. However, they do not run inside the browser, they run in a separate window. We have a sample of jPDFViewer running in this way in our website, from the jPDFViewer home page (Click on the link called “Webstart Demo”).
You may also be interested in our 2 KB entries:
Integrating a Web PDF Viewer: HTML5 or Applet?
Convert your applet from HTML to Webstart jnlp easily (without changing your applet code)
Convert PDF to HTML5 for viewing
We have also developed and released a new product called jPDFWeb, which converts PDF documents to HTML5 and can then serve them to the browser directly. Converting to HTML5 means that the browser is displaying the PDF content directly, so there is no need for a plugin and therefore there is no plugins needed at all. The HTML5 content can be displayed inside the browser as part of your web application and is supported by all browsers, including in mobile devices.
jPDFWeb runs on the server, typically a J2EE server, and can convert and serve single PDF pages or entire PDF documents, so you can choose how to display the PDF documents on the browser. The HTML5 content produced by jPDFWeb uses vector graphics (it is not an image converter), so the quality of your content remains nearly the same as when viewing PDF documents directly and text content remains searchable.
Visit jPDFWeb Home Page to find links to live demos, documentation and to download an evaluation version.
Server-Side Solution
We have released a new version of our server product, PDF Automation Server, that can convert PDF documents to HTML5 and serve them directly to the browser. The advantages of the server product over jPDFWeb is that it does not require a J2EE container and it provides management and logging, for easier deployment.
Visit PDF Automation Server Home Page to find links to documentation and to download an evaluation version.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about jPDFViewer and any of these new products.
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