PDF Viewer / Filter

Description

This software tool is a web PDF document viewer that allows the user to traverse through multiple documents with ease. The software retrieves a list of documents from a database and sets them up to be displayed within the web application. While the web application only displays one document at a time, it provides functionality, such as a scrolling mechanism, that will allow the user to scroll from one document onto the next. Additionally, the software provides a category filter function that will filter the list of documents to only those containing the specific category that user has selected. Lastly, the software provides a search function that not only does it look for keywords within the document that the user is looking at, it searches all the documents within the list, giving the user the most control when looking for specific data.  

Background

QTC is a medical organization whose aim is to deliver high quality, timely, and customer-focused medical examination solutions to government agencies and the people they serve. Their name is an acronym that stands for Quality, Timeliness and Customer Service, which are the three main principles that the organization is built upon. QTC provides a wide range of medical services that include annual health examinations, routine physicals, vaccinations, and disability examinations. Their extensive use of state of the art technology automates the examination workflow and gives their clients real-time access to case information, tracking and reporting. In addition, their reputation for quality, timeliness, and customer care has enabled them to build a large network of loyal clients and has established them as the largest provider of medical, disability and occupational health examination services in the country, a reputation they strive to keep for years to come. 

QTC currently has a vast database filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of PDFs containing tons of valuable information. Many of these documents are accessed on a regular basis as the information contained within them ensures that their clients are being cared for properly. As such, a more effective and efficient PDF viewer may greatly expedite the process of obtaining information from these documents and save a great deal of time and effort.

Currently, QTC uses their own in-house solution to this problem, which accomplishes the goal of this project, but in a different way. It fetches PDFs from a database and combines them into one large file, which is then displayed to give the illusion of traversing through many files at once. Of course this does accomplish the goal of creating a seamless view of many PDFs, but a couple issues do arise. One is a size constraint issue due to the size of this large combined PDF file, which can exceed several gigabytes in size, and is made up of redundant data. Another issue arises in that it is not always clear where one file ends and another begins, so filtering or sorting through these files is not possible, and it may take a long time to find a specific piece of information or a particular document within this large file.

Requirements (Summarized)

• The viewer must display its PDFs without exceeding a 500 MB storage limit.
• The Documents must be viewed 'continuously', in that scrolling the the end or beginning of one will trigger the next or previous PDF to be loaded into the viewer.
• The application must retrieve this list of PDFs from only the categories selected by the user.
• Searching and filtering by keyword must also be supported, wherein all instances of the currently searched keyword will be highlighted. 
• The viewer must be up to QTC's design standards, which includes styling of both the UI and the internal structure of our code.

Team Roles and Contact Info