LizardTech Pushes DjVu File Compression System Onwards

Hard on the heels of Mitsubishi's $25 million investment in
the firm late last year, LizardTech has started shipping a consumer
and small office version of its DjVu software.

DjVu, which is based on the technology of the same name that the firm
acquired from AT&T early last year, is billed as a highly compressible
alternative to PDF, JPEG and GIF file formats.

John Grizz Deal, LizardTech's president, told Newsbytes that the DjVu
file compression system is a major advance on all those that have gone
before because it compresses files down to a tiny fraction of their
normal size, without any data losses.

This contrasts with the fractal file compression systems that started
appearing around a decade ago, only to fall by the wayside.

Deal said that, unlike fractal compression systems, which are
inherently flawed because of the compression technology they use, DjVu
is an easy way to convert paper documents into compressed compact
files for transmission over the Internet.

DjVu Solo 3.1, which has just started shipping, includes optical
character recognition (OCR) capabilities for performing key word
searches within the document, including graphics and illustrations.

LizardTech is also offering a free DjVu viewer as a Web browser
plug-in, while the file creator, DjVu Solo, sells for $200. A non-OCR
capable version of the package is also available free of charge to
non-commercial users.

In use, DjVu Solo 3.1 is billed as a personal productivity and small
business utility with the power to quickly convert any scanned paper
document into a very small file and add an OCR layer, hyperlinks or
highlights for information retrieval and management.

LizardTech says that DjVu documents can be instantly transmitted at
100 times faster than Adobe PDF files, and 20 times faster than JPEG
or GIF file formats. In addition, unlike Adobe Acrobat, DjVu Solo 3.1
makes it easy to combine multiple documents or rearrange pages.

Deal said that DjVu Solo makes it easy to convert small quantities of
paper into the DjVu format. "Customers can input directly from their
scanners and add OCR plus hyperlinks with a click of a mouse," he
said.

LizardTech's Web site is at http://www.lizardtech.com.