Technology: Bridging the Gap between HTML and PDF documents for C# VB .NET business systems
Added: (Thu Sep 26 2019)
The internet has evolved in expected and unplanned ways, and it has certainly changed the home and working life of the vast majority of households on out planet. This evolution has brought forth some amazing technologies which as HTML (the primary language of the web) and PDF files, which have become "as good as paper" for document indelibility, without the environmental impact.
As each technology evolved, it evolved for its own ends. HTML (or hypertext markup language) which is the language used to design web pages and deliver their text content evolved largely for human use and with human concerns. It is a semantic language designed for humans to understand.
PDF files on the other hand evolved to ensure indelibility and pixel perfect printing. Their file format is not designed for human use, but in fact to be understand by a printer.
A Software Engineering firm with stated location in Wyoming and Illinois: "Iron Software LLC" has found a way to bring the 2 technologies together, and put the focus back on the humans.
HTML is a design language. So they have achieved just that, allowing PDF files to be generated by computers from HTML web-page designs. The technology is outlined in a recently published white-paper tutorial available online at: http://ironpdf.com/tutorials/html-to-pdf/
The implications if the technology becomes more clear when we consider that under the hood they have created a programatic interface for the C# (or VB .Net) language which underpins not only Windows Operating System programs and Servers, but also the websites and banking systems which we use every day in our work and personal lives. Because C# is used in so much of our existing intranet infrastructure, businesses may now leverage their existing web pages and web design assets to create Paper equivalent PDF documents which can be archived and served to customers as downloads.
The web changes every day, but PDF files are static records of a snapshot of data in time.
Iron Software name the technology IronPDF, and state that it works to compile HTML, Images, CSS and Javascript files using the free academic version of the Chrome (Google Chromium) web browser under the hood of their application.
Software Developers who are interested in this technology can find a detailed summary and version history from the Microsoft .Net Dynamic Link Library repository "NuGet" online at https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronPdf/
The web is growing each day in increments, and as our global content grows so does the need to preserve snapshots of it for business reasons. The Author hopes this technology is at least one good step in the right direction.
Submitted by:Jean Ashberg