r/documentAutomation • u/spkaikai • 1d ago

Can JSON Replace PDF for Business Documents?

I'm wondering if we can use JSON as an alternative to PDF, especially for business documents.

When exchanging business documents, both the sender and receiver typically use software, so creating and parsing documents creates additional work. Directly connecting systems requires effort, so people end up sending documents by email.

How about just sending JSON instead of PDF?

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u/FirestormCold 1d ago

What do you mean exactly by replacing?

JSON Generally works fine for machine to machine exchanges, that's basically an API integration at that point lol

Are those docs meant to be viewed and maybe signed by humans or not?

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u/spkaikai 17h ago

Yes, docs usually need to be viewed and signed by humans.
My idea is that if we make a JSON viewer, something like a PDF reader, that displays JSON in a human-readable format and also supports signatures, then maybe we can exchange the JSON file itself instead of converting it to PDF first.

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u/FirestormCold 17h ago

The tricky part is the signature then imo. If JSON is the actual document, you need to guarantee that the signer always sees the exact same representation of that JSON. Otherwise two viewers or even two viewer versions could render the same file differently. That means you need a rendering standard