Unipage - A PDF Alternative?

A reader writes: "Unipage recently released a beta version of its Unipage Unifier. The Unipage encoding is a way to encode a full page with its images, CSS, Javascript, Flash, and whatnot, into just one HTML file. The 'Unipage Unifier' program instantly turns any online or local page into a 'Unipage' that can be viewed directly in a browser. It saves the mess of files when you normally save a complete web page, but maybe the bigger scoop is that now people can use 'Unipages' to send content rich documents instead of PDF. But Unipages are superior to PDF in their ability to hold functionality (Javascript), Flash animations and practically anything normally possible in a web page. Together with any program that can export into HTML you can get fully styled, dynamic, portable documents instantly. And it's free." Good luck taking down the installed base of PDF.

Comments

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[spindleguy]

Besides, as it is said in Wikipedia, the reason for PDF is to render exactly the same regardless of its origin or destination and they are most appropriately used to encode the exact look of a document in a device-independent way. Unipage suffers from the common problem of webpages rendering differently in different browsers.

You are saying that PDF will render *exactly* the same regardless of the reader? I doubt that anything in the pdf file *guarantees* that. The fact that Adobe is resposible for implementing the most popular reader is the only reason anyone can make the above claim.

I could take the PDF specs and implement a crap reader that makes every document look like it was done by my 15 month old with crayons (complete with drool). There goes your *guarantee*.