The Portable Document Format (PDF) is a page-oriented, graphically rich document format based on PostScript semantics. It is the file format underlying the Adobe® Acrobat® viewers and is used throughout the publishing industry for final form documents and document interchange. Beyond document layout, PDF provides enhanced capabilities, which include logical structure, forms, 3D, movies and a
... [Show full abstract] number of other rich features.
Developers and system integrators face challenges manipulating PDF and its data. They are looking for solutions that allow them to more easily create and operate on documents, as well as to integrate with modern XML-based document processing workflows.
The Mars document format is based on the fundamental structures of PDF, but uses an XML syntax to represent the document. Mars uses XML to represent the underlying data structures of PDF, as well as incorporating additional industry standards such as SVG, PNG, JPG, JPG2000 and OpenType. Mars combines all of these components into a ZIP-based document container.
The use of open standards in Mars means that Mars documents can be used with a large range of off-the-shelf tools and that a larger population of developers will be very familiar with its underlying technology. Using these standards, publishers gain access to all of the richness of PDF, but can now tightly integrate Mars into their document workflows.