|
|
|
|
|
|
by cpeterso
3555 days ago
|
|
|
Interesting. I didn't know that someone had started working on form support (in 2016 or 2012). PDF.js started in Mozilla Research as a demonstration, and benchmark, for JS and Canvas capabilities. I don't know how much work adding full form support would be. PDF is a complicated format and I imagine there are a lot of corner cases. (I work for Mozilla but am not involved with PDF.js or PDFium.) |
|
|
At the rate I see development moving, pdf.js should be able to handle, say, every IRS form well before the end of the year, perhaps much sooner.
If I had the skills or resources to help now, I would.
I still don't understand why Mozilla has apparently not reached out to the larger business/governmental universe to see if they could partner in moving pdf.js forward. A single large insurance company might spend millions each year on licensing and implementing pdf "solutions". I can only imagine what the US government uses (or could use.) Has anyone from Mozilla spoken to 18F?
Perhaps even a open (and not proprietary) JSON (instead of XML) based form standard for "next-generation" forms could be implemented, with PDF.js at its core. (see https://github.com/modesty/pdf2json I linked to before for an element of that...the author is an employee of Intuit...perhaps it's already being used by them for their online tax software?).