PDFfolio can be used for the development of a wide range of applications. This list shows just possible examples, but it is only your imagination which sets the limits.
With PDFfolio, finding your way through extensive document collections becomes easy, fast and user-friendly. When setting up the information in the database, it is possible to add arbitrary additional information about the document in concern, which can be searched.
Originally intended for use with CD-ROM or DVD, it is possible to use a PDFfolio-based navigation and search system in an on-line environment. In this case, the data transfer file can be created either on-the-fly or in a batch process, representing the links to the most current documents. This data transfer file can then be loaded when the navigation system gets opened. The user would always get the most current document, without having to worry about its path… PDFfolio knows where the document is. The document collection can be of considerable size. One of the implementations manages the access to 18 000 documents with relative ease.
The document collections are not limited to PDF. Because the information about the document is not direlcty linked to a specific file, but entered and managed in the database, it can be any file; the link to the document can even be the location of a book in the library.
The same ideas of PDFfolio for displaying information about documents can be applied to any kind of item. PDFfolio can as easily and quickly find chemical substances as it can find tax forms… The product information is stored in the database, which could retrieve that information even from an ERP system, and then transferred to the container document.
PDFfolio also provides a simple shopping cart capability, which allows the user to assemble an order, without leaving the Acrobat environment. The ordering infromation can be submitted electronically, or via paper.
PDFfolio also provides tools for the content developer to find item numbers in an existing plain PDF version of a catalog, and to add active elements (such as buttons for displaying more information, or to order the item) to that document. This allows to enhance the electronic version of an existing print product.
PDFfolio can be used to build up tests and quizzes in an easy way. An application is, for example, a self-control test at the end of a learning unit in textbooks, where randomly picked questions are presented to the student, and the answers may be statistically evaluated. It would also be possible to create “real” test systems, where the data gets prepared on-the-fly on a server, and transmitted to the test application (the container file) when it gets opened.