'Net Features : html

Easily Convert HTML Content into PDF Files

Michael Garrity — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 06:00:00 GMT

PDF files are commonly used on many websites, but at first glance, it may seem like an unusual choice. After all, these documents aren’t nearly as accessible as more dynamic HTML content.

However, PDFs can be beneficial for some websites and content publishers, for the purposes of preserving a print format, offering an encapsulated file format, making the content easier to publish in an existing workflow, duplicating HTML content, creating more “formal” documents and more.

Luckily, publishing PDF files can be a relatively easy process thanks to software like PDFreactor, from cross-platform software solution provider RealObjects. This software is a formatting processor for converting HTML content in “typeset quality” PDF documents. PDFreactor is typically used for the server-side PDF creation of everything from dynamic data-driven documents to complex, high-quality PDFs, by utilizing common CSS knowledge and reusing investments in CSS-based style sheets to reduce costs for Web-to-print automation.

Earlier this month, the company released Version 6 of PDFreactor, which supports recent trends and changes in W3C Web Standards for HTML5, JavaScript, Web Fonts and CSS3. This new version also includes support for the HTML5 Canvas element, as well as a JavaScript engine that provides access to JavaScript libraries and frameworks, such as jQuery, Prototype, Flotr2, Modernizr and MooTools.

PDFreactor is 100 percent written in Java and can be deployed on most operating systems and application servers, which makes it easy to integrate into the majority of environments using Java, PHP, .NET, Python, Ruby or Perl API.

The software starts at $2,950 and includes support and maintenance for one year, educational or volume discounts are available. You can also try a 30-day free evaluation version here.

Zoho Makes Online Meetings Easy with HTML

Allison Howen — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:35:00 GMT

Zoho, a company that offers on-line business, productivity and collaboration applications, has announced an HTML viewer that aims to make joining online meetings easier.

The Zoho Meeting HTML viewer doesn’t require installation or plugins, which allows someone to join a meeting with just a click of the mouse.

Zoho Meeting is designed for online meetings, remote support and Web conferencing. Aside from the new HTML viewer, a Java, ActiveX and Flash viewer are also available.

The HTML viewer is secure and efficient. It is also supported by most browsers, including: Google Chrome (1+), Mozilla Firefox (3.0+), Internet Explorer (9+), Safari (3+) and Opera (9.5+).

Charset Checkup (HTML5)

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:16:00 GMT

HTML5 is revolutioning nearly every facet of Web work - from applications to layout/design. It's importance to search engine optimization is also something to note.

Website Magazine's upcoming August issue tackles the subject of structured data but what we quickly found was that there's much more going on that Web workers (particulary those in SEO) should definitely be aware of - for example, the meta charset tag in HTML5.

Character encoding tells the browser what character set the web page is written in. Failure to specify a character set forces the browser to assume that the web page uses a default one. If the browser is read this information wrong, the page may be displayed incorrectly. Let's do a "charset" checkup and show how to set charset in HTML5.

If you've spent anytime designing web pages (or SEO'ing them) then you know that setting the character encoding on a document in HTML4 is typically done with a META element.

Here's an example:

With HTML5 however, a shortened syntax syntax is supported.

Here's an example:

Including character encoding for your web pages, even if you never use any special characters, is immensely important - and worthy of a checkup.

The character encoding information should be placed in the first line of HTML after the root and head elements. Designers can also specify the character encoding in the HTTP headers, which is even more secure than adding it to the HTML, but access to the server configurations or .htaccess files is needed.