Slashdot Mirror
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.
- Support vector-based documents, allowing both text and graphics to scale to any size?
- Provide a way to cryptographicly sign a document?
- Attempt to tackle the "portable" in PDF? Are you kidding me? It looks like a Windows-only download.
- Support e-book DRM features?
- etc, etc...
Actually, nowhere on the product's website do they claim to be a "PDF killer". It just looks like an independent developer's attempt to make a cool little (beta) application. Interesting, but I'm left to wonder why I'm reading about this on the front page of Slashdot? Not to mention IE has this functionality for years.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Not to mention, do you really want scripting support in a portable document format? Isn't the whole point that you're able to view the same document, on screen and printed out, across a wide range of platforms, and they'll all look identical? Dynamic content is throwing a wrench in those works.
You say that as if it were necessarily a good thing.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Voting on Mozilla bugs never does anything. It's opium for the masses - it gives you the feeling that you can do something and make a difference, but it's really just a convenient way for the developers to channel user input into an area where it's easy to ignore.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
And what happens when the person viewing the Unipage doesn't have the fonts installed that are specified in the Unipage, like because they're viewing on a different (eg. OS) platform than that used to create the Unipage? That's the original design goal of PDF ("Portable Document Format).
--
make install -not war
Hell... relying on different implementations of CSS is going to ruin true portability.
Still, this could be nice for those times you need to send webpage to a client that can't figure out how to unzip files properly.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Umm no. Have you ever seen the power of the math package on LaTeX? I can create horrendously complicated expressions? HTML? You probably mean Math ML - this depends on browser support, and, (you guessed it), rendering depends on the browser.
As others pointed out - you lose the whole "looks same everywhere" aspect once you move away from DVI, PS and PDF. I mean for crying out loud - you have to put *hacks* in your CSS just to get the same page looking right between IE and Mozilla-based browsers. This isn't a solution.
Unipages are superior to PDF in their ability to hold functionality (Javascript), Flash animations and practically anything normally possible in a web page
Superior or different? This looks quite nice, but how can one compare this with PDF? This is just... something different.
PDF is a "portable document format". A way to port a (static) document so that it will be viewed and printed identically everywhere.
HTML is a way of describing documents so that they can be viewed and interacted with on a lot of platforms. It will NOT look the same on all platforms, it will NOT print well on all platforms (as a matter of fact, it will probably print very poorly on most platforms)
Different goals, different products. Why is that everyone wants the "do-it-all" product?
--
Krazy Kat Online
Write boring code, not shiny code!
I don't see why, if the semantics of the dynamic content are clearly defined. So long as the dynamic content works the same on all those different platforms, that's fine.
As for the "on-screen and printed out" issue, it's fairly clear that the "dynamic" part will not print out. Of course, a static view of the dynamic content should always print out fine, and look the same as the live version.
This begs the question - if the purpose is to excape a spawn of satan software like Adobe's PDF & its viewer, why create a format that can imbed web plugins, especially ones like flash?
If Unipage did replace PDF, we could expect a much worse time of things, when every Joe Average and business marketinghead in sundry attempts to embed Flash, Shockwave and Java into documents.
PDF is an open standard as is, and certainly a good one, for a start. For saving documents (paper) in a way you can be guaranteed will render the same anywhere else. RTFA, and Unipage is entirely different and in no way competing project, revelant to saving webpages as "one-file", in an .mhtml way. Is that a common problem anyway?
But yes, even if misinformed, they aren't yet ready to take on Adobe Acrobat. from http://unipage.org/links.html
Links
Free software for creating dynamic web pages:
coming soon
Agreed. Upstarts like this NEED mac and linux versions more than most products do, because I feel like Mac and Linux users tend to be more willing to try products like this out.
Or perhaps it was made a slashdot story because many slashdot readers like to hear about new programs and projects allowing innovative new approaches to computing problems (in this case rich document transfer).
Try getting a magazine to print a spread or ad from this.
Sorry folks, print media requires PDF-x1 standards and that won't be going away.
It was too long a fight to get away from INDesign/Quark specs and PDF is actually a nice format.
With that said, why the hell would I want to look at 2 software versions of an ad to approve it when I can see the exact PDF the printer will use?
The other thing I saw as a narrow viewpoint was this quote
Isn't Windows the only OS that requires the 'special' software to view PDF's?
Most major picks of Linux has 3 PDF viewers and Mac has Preview out of the box.
The only thing that Mac Preview (as of Panther) doesn't do is PDF watermarking (acrobat feature only - Like permissions in corporate Office 2003).
I think all Unipage was trying to do was get away from the PDF plugin annoyance.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
It can not even compare. the #1 use for PDF's here is the ability for management to sign the documents and send them upwards. We can do thousands of things with PDF that this looks like it cant not be done. There is no PHP module to create these as well as a myriad of other issues making it extremely far away from even approaching the useability of PDF.
Embedding Flash and JS is a negative as far as I am concerned. Last thing I need is a damned JS app buried in the document to try and contact a server to let the creator I opened the document.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Does the PDF standard belong to Adobe? - Yes, but they publish the standard in enough detail so that anyone can use it to read/write standard PDFs. See http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/pdf/ind ex_reference.html
e s-pdf.txt
Do they charge for this, their patents pertaining to PDF, etc? - No, not as long as you're trying to be compliant with the PDF standard. See http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/adobe-ipr-draft-zill
Adobe could have created a proprietary format and tried to defend it via patents, but they haven't. They could have also tried to make money off of 3rd parties trying to create PDF reader/writers by charging for patent licenses, but they haven't.
This is the reason that the PDF format (and, by association, Adobe) is the leader in this area.
HTML is for displaying content regardless of how it appears, in whatever the best format is for a program that is browsing the web.
PDF is for making a file that creates a copy of a printed page. Very useful for some things, completely inappropriate for others.
I agree with you. It seems like everything people are saying is how it doesn't stack up to all the slick shiney features of PDF. The problem I see is that people are using PDF's far too much for things that don't need to be PDF. I can't count how many times I go to a college athletic website to look at season stats or roster information and almost everything on the site is in PDF. For the same size of page in html the stupid page would be smaller/load faster. I want to puke when I see the acrobat reader splash screen come on when I want to look at a file that would amount to less than a printed page. PDF's may be great for some applications, but most applications I see them used for would be better suited as standard web pages.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
Has everyone forgotten that the purpose of html is that the pages look different on different devices? The idea being that the information is what's important and the device should know how to best present it (given sufficient metadata). This is the exact opposite of the purpose of pdf, which looks the same no matter what. Of course some data could benefit from having part shown always the same and other parts shown according to device, and that's what this may do.
Adobe has done that? God that sucks.
.pdf files? Yuk.
Two of my least favorite things - javascript, and Flash.
Each infecting
PS: Hey mods: I'm not trolling. Developers need to keep in mind the preferences of their programs' users! There are MANY of us out here who will never enable scripting or Flash, in a browser or anywhere else. It's not a troll, just a fact of life. Just because you as a developer like the shiny and flashy and insecure, doesn't mean your users do. Hell, when I developed webpages, I never inflicted client-side scripting on my users.
I think all Unipage was trying to do was get away from the PDF plugin annoyance.
Just for the record, in 2006 here are things that web developers should NOT do anymore.
Open up links in new windows, unless its for a reason. The only reason I can think of is when sites like CNN open up external links to indicate that you are leaving their domain, and they are not responsible for the external site's content or whatnot. (Its still annoying, but it has a valid reason).
NEVER, EVER, use plugins. EVER!
All content like PDFs and Java JAR files, should have a mime type to just download the file for offline viewing. The same with flash, or the new plugin of the week.
Am I the only person who uses the web and downloads files? Am I the only person on the web who knows how to open up a link in a new window or tab? I find some websites just to be annoying to navigate. I can't figure out their rhyme or reason for opening up in a new window or not (sometimes it appears random), and I can't figure out to close the window to go back to the previous page or to hit the back button. Less is more.
HTML, OTOH, is a text markup language. It only defined certains classes and the certain relations among those classes. It does not explicitely define how things are rendered, and in fact is explicitely flexible enough to allow printed, audible, or tactile output. Even with CSS HTML is not goiong to achive the level of reproduction that PDF and things like postscript do. Of course, if the basis for production is Flash, then the HTML becomes just a container. But if one depending on CSS, one is likely in for a sad surprise, as there is still quite a bit of flexibility in implementaion, not to mention abiguity and right out error.
This is kind of like MS trying to make the various MS Office format the defacto means to transfer files. After all, everyone has MS Office, so why not just transfer files. Of course, each MS Office format is slightly different, and translating can mess up formats. It will be close, but not as close as PDF.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The problem is that neither format is right for what people want out of a document format: editability and universal layout. HTML is easy to edit, but looks different depending on what you use to view it. PDF, on the other hand, looks the same but isn't easy to edit.
.DOC.
PDF isn't supposed to be easily editable, and that's the point. If you're going to easy editability, a Microsoft Office format is pretty much the standard. If you're saving something in a PDF, it's to make sure the person you are sending it to sees precisely what you saw. It can't be changed easily, and it won't be rendered differently if it's opened in a different program.
Yeah, a do-all format should be easily edited and universally standard. But sometimes the do-all product isn't the best. If I send a file in PDF, it's in PDF for a reason. If I just wanted to make sure it was readable, I'd send it as
Computers need to explode more often.
This raises a question I've been asking for a while: Do we need an alternative to PDF? Or do we need an alternative to Acrobat? I would love to see an open source alternative to Acrobat Pro; Foxit Reader is great as freeware goes (once you get rid of the advertisement), but it can't do everything Acrobat Pro can, such as rearranging/deleting/adding pages. Plus it's definitely not as good at copying text. The same applies to GPL PDF-readers on Linux, such as xpdf.
Unfortunately, it seems there aren't any open source developers interested in making an alternative to Acrobat Pro. All too many are apparently more interested in making alternatives to open source software that already exists and does a fine job, such as new media players and text editors.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
That's a replacement for Distiller, granted.
But Mac OS X already provides that built-in, as does OpenOffice on Linux or some of the printer-driver plugins for Windows.
Basic PDF creation isn't in dispute. It's the other functions of Acrobat that seem to be missing from the FOSS arsenal: document signing, markup, commenting, and verification. Also, making forms that can be filled in and printed, without accidentally altering the form proper, is a pretty big deal for a lot of people (maybe GhostScript does that now, although I sort of doubt it).
Creation is only the first step in a workflow, what needs to happen now is the rest of the tools, hopefully in a way that's compatible with Adobe's "reference" ones.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
PDF is an open standard. Anyone can create PDFs or programs that create/modify them without paying any royalties to Adobe. Adobe's viewer is not required to view or create PDFs.
Just because the company that created it makes bloated reader software does not make the format itself the "spawn of satan". PDFs are quite usable, thank you.
If you're not going to use a technical term correctly, don't use it at all. The public is already confused enough about science(*), is it too much to ask that we use a little rigor? It's important that the public knows what it means when we say that "Intelligent design is a fundamentally question-begging response to the problem of speciation", or that when George Bush justifys the war in Iraq by saying he'd do anything to protect america, he's begging the question "Is the war in Iraq protecting america?"
These are not little things, these are phrases that could come up in any sunday morning news show and people need to know what they mean.
*(counting logic as part of science here)
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I work in producing software to support government archives, and it looks to me like Unipage won't fly for the kind of market we deal with. Electronic archives are supposed to hold documents pretty much forever. The official records of the UK treasury - on parchment - date back at least 900 years; this might seem exceptional, but some documents need held for 100 years+ for legal reasons. Even the 7 years you need to keep financial records is an eternity in software terms.
In this environment, you need an open standard, or software capable of displaying documents in a way that can be emulated (since hardware disappears). No hardware DRM dongles please, and no frickin plugins. Word is barely tolerated (its a generic container format, needing potentially infinite software support). By contrast the use of plugins in PDF is rare, and prohibited in PDF/X, so it suits us fine. It's a big step up from scanned images (and is better specified than eg TIFF 6)
Unipage on the other hand doesnt seem to improve things at all. Its just format that sticks things in an archive, not an archival format. Like Word, its dependent on an ever-disappearing ecosystem of undocumented plugins. If this somehow 'killed' pdf, we'd have to start archiving vmware snapshots instead of individual docs!
Not saying it doesn't have its uses, but just pointing out another perspective on why people use pdf...
There are several glaring holes in the functionality presented in Unipage. PDF allows you to design a page with all sorts of fonts, and then embed the fonts in the PDF so anyone who can open a PDF can display the design in it's correct formatting. PDF's can have all sorts of file types embedded in the main document. The main issue I think is vector graphics, that can be scaled, resolution independent. This is a nice effort, but there's no real functionality, and certainly not for the Print and Design World.