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Pdf.js Reaches First Milestone

theweatherelectric writes "The pdf.js project aims to implement a PDF viewer using standards-compliant Web technologies. The project has reached its first milestone: it renders the sample PDF (a paper on Mozilla's Tracemonkey JavaScript engine) perfectly. However, that perfection currently comes with some caveats: 'pdf.js produces different results on pretty much every element in the browser×OS matrix. We said above that pdf.js renders the Tracemonkey paper "perfectly" if you're running a Firefox nightly. On a Windows 7 machine where Firefox can use Direct2D and DirectWrite. If you ignore what appears to be a bug in DirectWrite's font hinting. The paper is rendered less well on other platforms and in older Firefoxen, and even worse in other browsers. But such is life on the bleeding edge of the web platform.'"

3 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wow by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They've actually failed to grasp the point of PDF. You might as well go back to HTML if your PDF reader can't render the same everywhere considering that was the whole point of PDF to begin with.

  2. Fun fact: by giuseppemag · · Score: 4, Informative

    I can render a PDF perfectly on all OSes I own (Windows, OS X, iOS, Windows Phone 7) already!

    --
    My book: Friendly F#, fun with game development and XNA; my game: Galaxy Wars by VSTeam; my gamedev language: Casanova.
  3. Re:Wow by PybusJ · · Score: 4, Informative

    Or perhaps you've failed to grasp the point of a v0.2 pre-release on github? In fact TFA specifically states that pixel perfect rendering _is_ their goal.

    The blog post describes the current progress; it now has good rendering on one platform, progress from last week.