WinCE PDF Viewer

A US software company focusing on document workflow management solutions for enterprise mobile workers who use wireless and handheld devices.

The company has realized that there are no PDF tools for Pocket PCs on the market. It thus decided to design a set of tools for viewing and manipulating common enterprise document formats on handheld devices. As a first step, the company needed to design a PDF viewer as a key component of the mobile office platform.

Novosoft has designed a comprehensive PDF viewer for mobile devices running on Windows CE platform, that allows viewing PDF files, annotate documents, create bookmarks, view pictures (TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PNG), and open eBook documents on a handheld PDA. The product is enhanced by plug-ins, such as: http and ftp access to any documents of supported formats directly from the handheld device, so important documents may be obtained any time from any place. Primer supports plug-in architecture to extend document workflow to handheld computers. Future plug-ins will include electronic forms, digital signatures and digital rights management.

Main application features include proprietary memory manager for effective use of limited PDA resources, component architecture enabling to expand and configure the product flexibly, ergonomic user interface reserving maximum of a small screen area for viewing content of the document.

Tools: C++, Windows CE, MS eMbedded Visual Tools
Platforms: MacOS, Unix, PalmOS
Technologies:

	Encryption (RC4, MD5);
	Operating systems: Unix, Palm OS, Mac OS;
	Network protocols: HTTP, FTP, support of proxy, version for PDA, caching, authorization for http/ftp;
	Image formats: TIFF (including RLE, CCITT, LZW, JPEG encoding), JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP;
	Color conversion between formats with different quality/speed ratio. RGB, CMYK, Lab, XYZ, Grayscale, B&W are supported;
	Proprietary Novosoft system of reading, processing, and output of fonts depending on PDA limitations. Font formats supported: Type1, Type1C, TrueType, OpenType.

Since the company has introduced the first product to provide PDF viewing on a Windows-powered Pocket PC, it has become extremely popular. Sales to new and existing customers have soared. Popularity of the new tool was in part due to the innovative plug-in architecture that allowed third parties to extend the core technology with custom solutions.