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Looking at the results of the most searched-for terms on Developer during 2014, we discovered that "PDF" came out at number eight on the list. This isn't surprising given the dominance of the Portable Document Format (PDF) as a cross-platform, browser-independent file format.
Back in 1991, John Warnock, co-founder of Adobe Systems, outlined a project known as "Camelot", with the aim of solving the problem of communicating visual material between different computer applications and systems:
I would argue that his last sentence is correct, and the solution, PDF, has indeed had an incredible impact!
From its release in 1993 until 2008, PDF was a proprietary format controlled by Adobe. On July 1, 2008, however, PDF 1.7 was officially released as an open standard, ISO 32000-1:2008, with Adobe relinquishing control to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The same year, Adobe published a public patent license for this ISO standard, granting royalty-free rights to every individual and organization in the world "to make, have made, use, sell, import and distribute" PDFs.
Fulfilling Warnock's vision, with the explosive growth of the Internet, "PDF has become one of the most common formats for document exchange, widely used in all professional and personal contexts". (ISO, July 2008). A very, very rough search demonstrates that around 75% of all electronic documents on the web are indeed PDFs.
Competitors to PDF, such as DjVu, or Microsoft's XPS (now OXPS) format, exist. Do you think that PDF is going to be overtaken in the near future?
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Recipes
Create a Simple, Rule-based PDF Report
Page numbering in PDF documents
Changing or Updating PDF Output Fields
Back in 1991, John Warnock, co-founder of Adobe Systems, outlined a project known as "Camelot", with the aim of solving the problem of communicating visual material between different computer applications and systems:
I would argue that his last sentence is correct, and the solution, PDF, has indeed had an incredible impact!
From its release in 1993 until 2008, PDF was a proprietary format controlled by Adobe. On July 1, 2008, however, PDF 1.7 was officially released as an open standard, ISO 32000-1:2008, with Adobe relinquishing control to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The same year, Adobe published a public patent license for this ISO standard, granting royalty-free rights to every individual and organization in the world "to make, have made, use, sell, import and distribute" PDFs.
Fulfilling Warnock's vision, with the explosive growth of the Internet, "PDF has become one of the most common formats for document exchange, widely used in all professional and personal contexts". (ISO, July 2008). A very, very rough search demonstrates that around 75% of all electronic documents on the web are indeed PDFs.
Competitors to PDF, such as DjVu, or Microsoft's XPS (now OXPS) format, exist. Do you think that PDF is going to be overtaken in the near future?
---
Recipes
Create a Simple, Rule-based PDF Report
Page numbering in PDF documents
Changing or Updating PDF Output Fields
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Our written material (recipes and documentation) is currently being migrated, and is available in beta on community.appway.com at Support > Knowledge Base.
All information for Appway 6.3 and below is still available here on developer.appway.com while this migration takes place.
Note: Material relevant for Appway 7 will only be available in the Knowledge Base on community.appway.comAny questions or feedback? Please contact community@appway.com