Case Study Ixiasoft: PDF Technology For Collaborating on Documents

Enable Technical Collaborators to Display, Review, Markup PDFs


Company Profile

IXIASOFT is specialized in XML content management software and authored DITA CMS, a content management solution designed specifically to create, manage and publish DITA1-based technical documentation. Ixiasoft’s customer base serves multiples vertical industries including newspaper & publishing, technical documentation, software/hardware manufacturers, medical devices and libraries & education.

The Technical Challenges

IXIASOFT wanted to include PDF functions in their DITA CMS product, a content management solution designed to manage the entire documentation process within technical organizations.  IXIASOFT was looking for these capabilities:

  • View PDF documents onscreen
  • Enable document review with full featured annotation capabilities
  • Allow online collaborative review, with real-time visibility of other reviewers’ annotations

The Solution

After evaluating different solutions, Ixiasoft decided to partner with Qoppa Software to use Qoppa’s jPDFNotes and jPDFProcess libraries.  The jPDFNotes component is used on the client-side to enable reviewers to view PDF documents, review existing annotations and add new annotations to the documents.  When annotations are added, jPDFNotes notifies the CMS server.

In the back-end, the CMS Server uses the jPDFProcess library to merge annotations from multiple reviewers to produce the final document. The whole process allows real-time collaboration among reviewers.

The Benefits

“This challenging project required integration with the Ixiasoft server side component.  Opening our API to meet this challenge also offers other integrators more direct integration control.”  Leila Caison, Director of Product at Qoppa Software.

“Qoppa’s jPDFProcess and jPDFNotes are integral elements of DITA CMS.  The API is so open, and these components notify our application as each annotation is created, which allows the CMS server side to index the document and notify the other collaborators.”  Jean-François Ameye, VP Products, IXIASOFT.

“I have heard the same thing repeatedly about Qoppa Software from my technical teams – Qoppa is VERY RESPONSIVE!  Whenever we offer ideas, suggestions for change, or need some help, the Qoppa folks actively listen, commit to helping, and then deliver!”  Caroline Couvrette, VP Sales & Marketing, IXIASOFT.

1: DITA  (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is a standard format for writing content in a modular way that can then be easily re-assembled into new documents as the need arises.

Products Used

Integration Support For Developers: