Technical FAQs

How PrizmDoc Hybrid Viewing Works

Rather than converting files into large SVGs, a web-friendly format, for client viewing on the server side, PrizmDoc’s Hybrid Viewing feature instead converts files into optimized PDFs and then offloads the viewer processing work to client-side devices. Rendering PDF files in the browser on the end user’s device significantly reduces the amount of pre-conversion workloads needed to display documents. Since all the processing work associated with viewing is being handled on the client’s device, the user experience is much more responsive.

The Business Case for Hybrid Viewing

The Accusoft engineering team developed the Hybrid Viewing feature based on extensive conversations with PrizmDoc customers about their evolving application needs. While there are still many situations where documents need to be processed and edited on the server to take full advantage of PrizmDoc’s server-side features, customers were looking for a more flexible option that would allow users to simply view files without increasing server loads.

Hybrid Viewing provides several important business benefits to existing and potential PrizmDoc customers.

Reduced Costs

One of the challenges with server-based processing is that scaling to a larger number of users can be expensive. Adding more users increases the overall server workload because each viewing session requires the server to prepare and process the document for viewing. Scaling this model after a certain usage threshold becomes expensive for many organizations. By offloading the processing work needed for viewing to client-side devices and minimizing server loads, PrizmDoc customers can scale usage more cost-effectively.

Improved Performance

Server-based viewing sometimes struggles to keep up when users are scrolling through a large, multi-page document. Lag can be even more significant if they need to jump from one section to another, forcing the server to stop loading one page so it can begin processing another. Offloading that processing work to a client-side device speeds up viewing performance because the device doesn’t have to continually connect to the server each time the user pulls up a new page. Increased responsiveness provides end users with a better overall viewing experience.

Tech-Stack Consolidation

Limitations with server-based viewing forced many customers to implement alternative solutions that made sense for their applications but involved a lot of extra development and maintenance. These solutions often include outdated desktop-based viewers that don’t offer much in the way of features. Transitioning to PrizmDoc Hybrid Viewing will allow customers to consolidate their tech stack, streamline development, and provide a more unified user experience without sacrificing performance or incurring additional costs.  

Frequently Asked Questions about Hybrid Viewing

It’s understandable that there are many questions about how the Hybrid Viewing feature works and how it will impact deployments. To address those concerns, we’ve provided answers here for some of the most common questions we’ve received.

Do I have to move to metered licensing?

PrizmDoc’s Hybrid Viewing feature is only available with metered licensing. We understand that some customers are currently on OEM licensing or one of our deprecated licensing options and we will work with you, review your current and projected transactions, and make the move to metered licensing as easy as possible.

How will metered licensing impact my data security?

Under our metered licensing plan, your PrizmDoc Server instance must contact Accusoft to 1) report the number of documents you have processed and 2) validate that your license is still current. Each report covers a period of time (usually 4-hour intervals) and is sent once every 18 hours. The data contained in these reports include:

• Timestamp of when the period began
• Duration of the period
• Count of documents processed
• An auto-generated ID

No other data is reported back to Accusoft.

Do I have to upgrade PrizmDoc to use Hybrid Viewing?

Yes, PrizmDoc Hybrid Viewing is only available starting in v13.22. We always recommend that customers upgrade to the latest version of PrizmDoc Server. Our engineering team is constantly implementing bug fixes, quality-of-life improvements, and critical security updates. Neglecting to upgrade PrizmDoc Server instances could leave your application exposed to potential security risks. All PrizmDoc versions are backward compatible. The Hybrid Viewing feature works for self-hosted, private cloud-hosted, and public cloud-hosted servers and requires customers to use metered licensing.

Start Taking Advantage of Hybrid Viewing Today!

If you’re already a PrizmDoc customer and you’re looking for a better way to scale your application’s viewing capabilities, our new Hybrid Viewing feature can help you achieve those goals. Talk to your Accusoft Account Manager to find out how you can implement Hybrid Viewing today.

Considering using PrizmDoc to implement powerful viewing and document management tools into your application? Talk to an Accusoft solutions specialist to learn more about how Hybrid Viewing can help you deliver greater value to customers without taking on unsustainable costs.

Ongoing Legal Digital Transformation

There are many challenges facing the legal industry that legal tech and new emerging legal technology can help solve, but getting firms to adopt new technology to address these challenges can be a hurdle.  But the most recent challenge within the eDiscovery process is compounding them all. 

The Arrival of New eDiscovery Challenges

The change to a remote/hybrid work environment starting in 2020 during the worldwide COVID pandemic transformed the working world. Even while some companies have returned to the physical workspace, hybrid and fully remote working conditions continue to exist. This means that the collaborative working social platforms and mobile apps we all used to communicate and work with (Teams, Slack, Zoom, Webex, WhatsApp, Google Meet, etc.) are here to stay. 

Regardless of whether employees are in-office, hybrid, or working remotely, using these collaborative working social platforms has become the new norm. This has had profound effects on legal firms performing eDiscovery, most of whom still depend on tools and review processes designed for standard digital documents (such as .doc, .xlxs, .ppt, etc), paper documents, and email. The process of collecting, viewing, searching, redacting, and collaborating across traditional documents and emails has pivoted, and firms are responsible for including the digitized content from these collaborative working social platforms in their eDiscovery.

Compounding the Problem

Processing this new collaborative working social content is a big enough challenge on its own. Unfortunately, many in the legal industry weren’t fully optimized with their digital transformation by adopting previously available legal tech. While some traditional eDiscovery tools have reached maturity and are being utilized by firms, many slower-to-adopt firms are still fighting internally to have legal tech implemented.

How can firms (both early adopters and those still in the digital transformation process) prepare for eDiscovery across these new platforms filled with chat streams, emojis, and video recordings?

Enter Third-Party Software Integrations

Legal tech independent software vendors (ISVs) can be assured that there is technology available that can support their eDiscovery across these collaborative working social platforms. But better still, they don’t need to build a solution from scratch. 

Readily available and easy to adopt, third-party software integrations allow ISVs to add the capabilities they need without disrupting development timelines or building features from scratch. The ability to view, search, annotate, and redact content within documents securely inside an existing application without sacrificing everyday functionality is powerful.

Take on Your eDiscovery Challenges with Accusoft

Accusoft software integrations help legal tech ISVs build a more productive process for case review and eDiscovery. With unique technology that enables easy digital document processing, manual processes like search and redaction are no longer labor-intensive. Accusoft’s digital document lifecycle technologies streamline collaboration and information-sharing while keeping files secure and original metadata intact.

Looking specifically to address the new challenges of processing new collaborative working platform content within your eDiscovery process? Accusoft’s solutions can not only view these new collaborative platform transcript file types (including JSON, VTT, DOCX) but also search, redact, and offer secure collaboration directly inside your application.

To learn more about how Accusoft integrations can support your legal digital transformation and eDiscovery challenges, talk to one of our technology experts today.

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For more information on Accusoft’s software integrations for eDiscovery, case, and practice management applications, visit our Legal industries page.

Join us for an engaging webinar with Dan Lee, Senior Product Manager at Accusoft, as we unravel the potential of AI for revolutionizing document management within your ECM.

Key Insights to be Discussed:

• Document Automation with AI
  Learn how AI technologies can streamline document-related tasks, such as data extraction, classification, and indexing
• Document Search and Retrieval Enhancement
  Discover the transformative power of AI-driven semantic search, enhancing document navigation and boosting decision-making and productivity.
• Security and Compliance
  Explore how AI plays a pivotal role in bolstering document security and ensuring compliance with industry regulations.

This webinar will delve into real-world cases showcasing PrizmDoc AI Integrations for PII identification within documents.

Key Take-Aways:

• How to configure PrizmDoc AI to identify PII in documents in your environment
• How to use PrizmDoc AI for PII detection
• Understanding of potential future PrizmDoc AI Integrations to further streamline your document workflow

Don’t miss this opportunity to shape the future of document management with AI.

Adding document viewing features to an application can be a challenge. Although there are many open source options available, finding a suitable ASP.NET document viewer or .NET image viewer that provides the right level of flexibility and functionality often requires a more specialized solution. Fortunately, .NET developers have good options when the time comes to integrate document viewing into their software, which helps them to focus on other application features.

The API Document Solution

Rather than building a dedicated viewer within their .NET application, many developers instead turn to an HTML5 viewer integration that uses REST APIs for their document needs. Since these viewers work within the web browser and can support any programming language, they provide the right balance of versatility and performance for most software applications. An HTML5 document viewer ensures a consistent viewing experience across multiple software platforms and browsers used within an enterprise environment.

Of course, if all an application needed to do was view files, it could simply use one of many open-source solutions. The problem is that these viewers typically only view one type of file, which means that the application also needs the ability to convert files into different formats. Depending upon the library in question, this could quickly escalate into a code-heavy solution that bogs down application performance and introduces multiple security vulnerabilities. If poor conversion tools are put in place, there’s also a strong likelihood that documents will not render accurately.

An HTML5 viewer with the right APIs can easily overcome these document management challenges for a .NET application. Conversion, annotation, comparison, and redaction features can all be integrated as part of a comprehensive viewing framework that doesn’t require developers to build anything from scratch or rely upon intrusive plugins that create risky dependencies.

How Accusoft APIs Enhance Your .NET Application

Accusoft’s PrizmDoc Viewer was designed to provide a broad range of document processing capabilities in addition to its core HTML5 viewing features. Once integrated into a .NET application, it allows developers to deploy REST API calls to convert files into new formats, split and merge documents, create page thumbnails, markup documents, and perform high-volume text searches. As an HTML5 viewer, PrizmDoc Viewer can deliver all of that functionality right within the browser rather than resorting to external applications.

The primary advantage of REST APIs is that they can be used from any programming language, so they don’t have to be custom-built to serve as an ASP.NET document viewer. That versatility does come with a tradeoff, however. Processes like uploading files, converting them, and then downloading outputs all require a series of HTTP requests. While this isn’t a particularly difficult process, it is slightly more resource-intensive than a solution built using the same programming language as the application. 

That’s why we developed a .NET SDK library that wraps around the server-related functions of PrizmDoc Viewer. Available for both .NET Core and .NET Framework, this SDK library wraps around the server’s REST APIs to make it easier to utilize server functionality in .NET applications.

For .NET developers looking for a better way to view and process documents, the PrizmDoc .NET SDK can help them access conversion, redaction, and annotation features without compromising the performance of their .NET applications.

Getting Started with PrizmDoc .NET SDK

In order to implement the .NET wrapper, developers just need to follow a few simple steps. 

1. Gain Access to a PrizmDoc Server Deployment

There are two ways to access PrizmDoc Server, which will allow you to carry out a variety of document processing functions. You can host a server on-premises as part of a PrizmDoc Viewer integration or sign up for a PrizmDoc Cloud account to use Accusoft’s cloud-hosted deployment.

2. Add the PrizmDoc Server .NET SDK Package

Next, download the free, open source .NET SDK library from NuGet or GitHub and add it to your application project.

dotnet add package Accusoft.PrizmDocServerSDK

3. Create a new PrizmDocServerClient

Once the .NET wrapper is in place, it’s time to construct a new PrizmDocServerClient and connect it to the server.

For a self-hosted PrizmDoc Server that’s part of a PrizmDoc Viewer deployment, the base URL is all that’s needed:

var prizmDocServer = new PrizmDocServerClient("http://localhost:18681");

If the you’re using PrizmDoc Cloud, you’ll need to provide the base URL along with your API key:  

var prizmDocServer = new PrizmDocServerClient("https://api.accusoft.com", "YOUR_API_KEY");

4. Begin Document Processing

Now that everything is in place, you can start processing and viewing documents within your .NET application. Our How To Guides provide some examples of common use cases, and you can also turn to the API Reference for additional guidance and information.

Get the Document Viewing Features Your .NET Application Needs

Accusoft’s PrizmDoc Viewer delivers the versatile HTML5 viewing capabilities that can set your .NET application apart from the competition. Thanks to the PrizmDoc Server .NET SDK wrapper, you can leverage the power of our REST APIs without needing to build out a customized viewing solution from the ground up.

Find out how easily you can manage your document needs with PrizmDoc Viewer’s browser-based functionality today. Sign up for a free trial to test our HTML5-powered viewer in your .NET environment.

Document viewing capabilities are no longer a specialized feature that require dedicated applications. Thanks to powerful software integrations, developers can now build PDF viewing into their solutions to create a better user experience and streamline workflows. The growing popularity of mobile devices, however, has posed a few challenges to development teams accustomed to building an exclusively desktop experience, especially when it comes to JavaScript PDF viewers. That’s why one of Accusoft’s key development goals has focused on making a JS PDF viewer responsive to mobile screens.

The Increasingly Mobile Internet

Since 2017, mobile devices have accounted for about half of global internet traffic. This trend has been fuelled primarily by a combination of improved cellular network coverage and the ever-increasing processing capabilities of the average mobile device. It’s hardly a surprise, considering that the latest smartphones are often the most powerful computing device people own. Even for consumers who own desktop or laptops as well, mobile devices make it easy to access internet services on the go, allowing them to manage finances, collaborate on work tasks, or utilize eLearning resources (or watch cat videos).

Today’s customers expect organizations to provide applications that deliver a consistent experience across all devices, regardless of screen size. The era of designing software exclusively for desktop computers and treating mobile support as an afterthought is long gone. If an application’s mobile experience doesn’t at least match that of the competition, customers will quickly make a change.

Viewing Challenges on Mobile Devices

Mobile devices can present a few challenges for application developers, especially when it comes to viewing documents like PDFs. While there are many PDF reader apps available for mobile platforms, they typically require users to download a file to local storage or to a cloud service in order to open a document. In addition to being inconvenient, this often leads to some presentation problems because the reader may not render the PDF exactly as the creator intended, especially if it’s not linearized.

Developers could, of course, rely upon the mobile browser to display documents, but this also introduces problems. As with external reader apps, the browser viewer may not render the document as intended, which creates an uneven user experience across multiple platforms. More importantly, the browser’s interface may lack key controls that enhance the viewing experience on mobile devices, especially if the viewer is little more than a basic PDF.js library.

PDF.js and Mobile PDF Viewing

The open-source PDF.js library was originally designed for Mozilla’s Firefox browser, but it has become the basis for a broad range of PDF viewers due to its flexibility. That’s partly why the Accusoft PDF Viewer uses PDF.js as its foundation. However, one area where that versatility is sorely lacking is with regards to mobile support.

More specifically, PDF.js doesn’t supply a UI that is responsive for different screen types. It was designed to render PDFs to a conventional computer display and provides the expected tools needed to navigate a document using a keyboard and mouse interface. Even if developers were to incorporate the PDF.js library into their application, they would still need to build a new user interface for mobile devices. Otherwise, key mobile viewing features like touch scrolling and pinch to zoom would be handled not by the viewer, but by the device’s touchscreen interface. 

While this might sound like a small distinction, it can actually create serious problems when it comes to rendering the document at different zoom levels. Essential features like text search may also be rendered useless by the poor interface, and the lack of thumbnail previews could make navigating the document tedious.

Making a JS PDF Viewer Responsive

Today’s developers need viewing integrations that offer out-of-the-box mobile support to deliver a consistent viewing experience. That’s why we built upon the foundation of PDF.js to create a responsive viewer interface that instantly adapts to any screen size. Easily integrated into any web-based application, the Accusoft PDF Viewer immediately determines what type of device is being used when a document is opened. If it’s a mobile device, the viewer replaces the controls used for desktop viewing with dedicated mobile controls designed for a touchscreen. 

Key touch features like pinch-to-zoom allow users to interact with PDFs on mobile and tablet devices just as easily as they could with a mouse and computer screen. That usability is the key component of making a JS PDF viewer responsive. Mobile screens should never be treated like conventional screens. By integrating a mobile-ready viewer into their web application, developers can ensure viewing consistency across platforms while also allowing people to access documents where they want and when they want them.

Integrate Responsive PDF Viewing in a Snap

Building an application that includes a JS PDF viewer responsive to mobile screens is easier than ever thanks to Accusoft PDF Viewer. As a flexible JavaScript PDF library, it integrates quickly into any web-based application with just a few lines of code and no complicated server configurations. Our industry-leading expertise with imaging technology has allowed us to make substantial improvements to the way PDF.js renders PDF documents and ensure high levels of resolution regardless of zoom level or screen DPI.

To find out what Accusoft PDF Viewer can do for your application, download the Standard Version today at no cost and test its powerful viewing features in your development environment. With only a few lines of code, it’s the fastest way to add responsive PDF viewing to your web-based software solutions.

For expanded features like annotation markup tools, eSignature capabilities, UI customization, and white labeling, consider upgrading to Accusoft PDF Viewer Professional Version. Download our fact sheet for a detailed breakdown in available features.