About the viewers

The viewers help you display documents that are saved in a specific format or need special processing before they can be displayed on a user’s screen.

The AFP Web Viewer is a software program that extends the capabilities of a Web browser in a specific way. The AFP Web Viewer lets users view AFP documents in the browser window. The AFP Web Viewer adds a toolbar to the top of the display window. The viewer toolbar is in addition to the browser's toolbar. The viewer toolbar provides controls that can help users work with documents. Each user who plans to use the AFP Web Viewer to view AFP documents must install it on their PC.

The HTML5 Line Data Viewer is an HTML5-based line data viewer with similar functionality to the Java Line Data Viewer, but it does not require the Java Plugin in order to extend the browser functionality. Most modern browsers have already phased out support for the Java Plugin. The HTML5-based line viewer is intended as a replacement for the Java Line Data Viewer.

The Java Line Data Viewer is an applet that requires the Java Plugin. The Java Line Data Viewer allows users to view line data documents that are stored in Content Manager OnDemand. You can continue to use the Java Line Data Viewer as long as your browser meets the requirements to run applets.

The Line Data Viewers display line data documents in the browser window and add a toolbar to the top of the display window. The toolbars of the Line Data Viewers provide controls that can help users work with documents. An administrator enables the use of the Line Data Viewers programmatically by writing their application to use one of the Line Data Viewers when retrieving line data documents. See Installing and configuring viewing and transform software for more details.

One advantage of both of the Line Data Viewers is that users never have to install or upgrade software on the PC to use them, unlike the AFP Web Viewer, which must be installed on the PC. Also, if IBM provides a new version of the AFP Web Viewer, you must distribute the updated software to all users.

When using the viewers that are provided by IBM, the documents that are retrieved from a Content Manager OnDemand server remain compressed until reaching the viewer. The viewer uncompresses the documents and displays the pages in a Web browser window. If a document was stored in Content Manager OnDemand as a large object, then the viewer retrieves and uncompresses segments of the document, as needed, when the user moves through pages of the document.