Google Builds a Native PDF Reader Into Chrome

An anonymous reader writes "Google's latest Chrome 6 Developer Update comes with a few subtle GUI changes, but there is also a major update under the hood. As its ties with Adobe quite apparently grow stronger, there is not just an integrated Flash player, but also a native PDF reader in the latest version of Chrome 6. Google says the native reader will allow users to interact with PDF files just like they do with regular HTML pages. The reader is included in Chrome versions (Chromium) 6.0.437.1 and higher, and you can use the feature after you have enabled it manually in the plug-ins menu. That is, of course, if you can keep Chrome 6 alive — Windows users have reported frequent crashes, and Google has temporarily suspended the update progress to find out what is going on." The Register has some more details on the PDF plugin and a link to Google's blog post about it.

Comments

Re:PDF is fat

[abulafia]

PDFs tend to bloat for at least two reasons - one is the inclusion of tons of rasters and other embedded objects, and that's a problem between chair and keyboard - the resultant documents are just was was asked for. The other is that PDF is (a superset of) a subset of Postscript. Some combinations of software and the drivers that generate PDFs, can do insanely redundant things that cause massive documents. One neat workflow I saw several years ago was placing raster images into Illustrator objects, then through a DTP program to be rendered to PDF. That particular software stack/combination of transformations managed add something like 400x bloat compared to the same document produced in a different way.

Generating non-insane Postscript used to be a solved problem, but it appears to come back every so often.

Also, changes in the PDF happened some time back that had big size advantages. Documents generated by old PDF renderers are going to tend to be larger than those generated by newer ones. (I don't really recall the details, but some of it was how embedded objects are stored.)

Re:Google Policy on Automatic Updates

[bertok]

Where are you that you need to keep an eye on your bandwidth?

Where the hell are you that you can't even imaging having to worry about bandwith? Can I move there?

Over here in Australia, internet connections with 1GB quotas per month are not unusual, and most mobile 3G accounts are even more restricted.

Re:Chrome, you're losing me!

[bcrowell]

The built-in PDF feature isn't available on the linux version yet.

Some questions that I had that weren't answered by TFA:

1. Is the PDF renderer fully open source and available under the same license as everything else, so that it can be included in nonproprietary builds of Chromium?
2. TFA says: "The plug-in doesn't do everything that the Adobe Reader does. It can't handle, for instance, certain embedded media[...]" This is probably a good thing, IMO. The $40,000 question is whether it supports javascript embedded in PDFs, which is the huge security nightmare in Adobe Reader. If it does support it, I hope it's turned off by default. Since I run linux, I can't test this. Can any slashdotters try it and find out?
3. Same question as #2 for embedded flash. I assume they haven't implemented it, hope they never do.
4. What is the patent situation with the implemented and nonimplemented "embedded media," and how does this affect fully nonproprietary builds of Chromium?