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That is true, their conversion understands text regions and various other things. However, what makes Scribd's viewer more sophisticated is that it will actuall

That is true, their conversion understands text regions and various other things. However, what makes Scribd's viewer more sophisticated is that it will actually use structured HTML to render the document content. This is more than just putting on a layer that specifies regions in the document, it will actually just be a normal HTML document, made of divs, text, images, etc. Plus, it will maintain the fidelity of the document -- meaning that even PDFs with complicated layouts will be rendered properly in HTML. No trivial task.

axod 17y ago
What will be the main advantage? It's a great technical challenge, but will users notice the difference?
- abstractbill 17y ago
  This is a little indirect, but presumably the googlebot will find it easier to index scribd pages, which might help you as a user if you're searching for something that's hosted on scribd.
  - axod 17y ago
    True, although .pdf files are already indexed. Do we also need to have html5 versions of those same pdfs indexed? I'm not sure we do.
- hazzen 17y ago
  Users will be able to easily view PDFs on the web from any device. I primarily read HN on my phone. Any time I see a [Scribd] link, I forget about the story because I can't read it. I have also had several occasions where I needed to read a PDF on the go. I had to email it to a friend and then call them, dictating the pertinent bits over the phone. Once this is live, Scribd will gain at least myself as a user, and I suspect many more. (Nesting is too deep to reply to axod, so: the fact that Google is doing this should be reason enough. Scribd exists as a place to publish material. That material should be reachable by as many users as they can manage.)
  - axod 17y ago
    http://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf http://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://infolab.stanford.edu... Works fine for me :/
- warfangle 17y ago
  Although the semantic web is still pie-in-sky-land, having your content structured instead of a big block o' text is always better. Especially if your users are disabled.

axod 17y ago

What will be the main advantage? It's a great technical challenge, but will users notice the difference?

abstractbill 17y ago
This is a little indirect, but presumably the googlebot will find it easier to index scribd pages, which might help you as a user if you're searching for something that's hosted on scribd.
- axod 17y ago
  True, although .pdf files are already indexed. Do we also need to have html5 versions of those same pdfs indexed? I'm not sure we do.
hazzen 17y ago
Users will be able to easily view PDFs on the web from any device. I primarily read HN on my phone. Any time I see a [Scribd] link, I forget about the story because I can't read it. I have also had several occasions where I needed to read a PDF on the go. I had to email it to a friend and then call them, dictating the pertinent bits over the phone. Once this is live, Scribd will gain at least myself as a user, and I suspect many more. (Nesting is too deep to reply to axod, so: the fact that Google is doing this should be reason enough. Scribd exists as a place to publish material. That material should be reachable by as many users as they can manage.)
- axod 17y ago
  http://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf http://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://infolab.stanford.edu... Works fine for me :/
warfangle 17y ago
Although the semantic web is still pie-in-sky-land, having your content structured instead of a big block o' text is always better. Especially if your users are disabled.