Nabeel Al-Shamma

We have a cool, new Adobe Labs project, Mars, an XML- and ZIP-basedrepresentation of PDF. Now developers will be able to use the tools and libraries they are already familiar with to create, edit and manipulate portable documents. And, we're providing plug-ins that let you read and write the Mars format in Acrobat 8 and to read them in Adobe Reader 8.

It's always been easy for end-users to create, annotate, and read PDF documents using Acrobat, Adobe Reader and lots of other products. And, over the years we've added lots of capabilities around forms fill-in, multimedia content, document review & comment, 3D, print production, JavaScript, photo sharing and so on. And, there are a number of Adobe and third-party tools that let developers manipulate PDF documents programatically. But, there are many more developers who are much more comfortable with XML as a data format. They can now use PDF much more efficiently, creating new services and applications, integrating PDF more tightly into their document workflows.

A few high points from my perspective:

- ZIP-based packaging, combining granular PDF pieces and binary data like images, fonts, movies
- SVG page content
- Extensibility mechanisms allowing you to integrate your own data
- Completely compatible with standard PDF: 1:1 mapping between file format constructs
- Easy manipulation due to granular approach, e.g., add/remove/edit standard content like annotations, just by putting an XML-file in the right place

Can't wait to see what folks figure out to do with this.

Nabeel