How Does CDF Compare to Other Technologies?

Traditional documents are easy to author, but are limited to content that's static or can only be played back. Interactivity is familiar in apps, but requires programmers to create.

CDFs are as interactive as apps, yet as everyday as documents. Interactivity isn't just pre-generated but live. And authoring for many cases is easy enough for non-programmers to create interactive content without specialist help.

Supported

Partially supported

	CDF	PDF	JS	HTML5	Flash	Java	TeX	EPUB™ 3.0.1	MS Office™
General Usability
Desktop application functionality CDF files can be deployed as complete standalone applications, including all executable code and required resources contained within.
Embedding on a webpage Notebooks can be easily and seamlessly embedded into webpages or blogs via the Wolfram Cloud.
Full page within a browser Access entire notebooks directly in the Wolfram Cloud.
Dynamic document hierarchy Readers can dynamically open and close chapters and sections in CDF documents. CDF also supports hierarchical, tab, slide, flip, opener and other document organizations.
Mobile application functionality Wolfram Player on iOS supports notebooks and CDF.
Interactivity	CDF	PDF	JS	HTML5	Flash	Java	TeX	EPUB™ 3.0.1	MS Office™
Dynamically interactive charts and diagrams Instead of relying on pre-computed results, charts and diagrams in CDF can be driven by real-time computation or prompt live computation for new results.
Interactive coding with free-form input With free-form linguistic input support, creating interactive content with CDF can be as easy as entering plain English.
Automatic interface construction With the help of intelligent automation, interface building with CDF requires as little as one line of additional code compared to static content.
Customizable user interfaces CDF standard provides a powerful interface language for sophisticated controls.
Tactile and responsive GUI Wolfram Player on iOS is optimized for touchscreen interaction.
Graphics	CDF	PDF	JS	HTML5	Flash	Java	TeX	EPUB™ 3.0.1	MS Office™
GPU-accelerated 2D and 3D graphics CDF provides GPU-accelerated 2D and 3D graphics for all supported platforms. Unlike many web technologies, it is fully mature and ready to use.
Integration of 3D graphics within a document 3D graphics and other types of content are treated equally and integrated seamlessly within CDF.
Built-in plots and charts for a broad range of subjects CDF provides the most comprehensive capabilities, thanks to the Wolfram Engine. The CDF standard provides field-specific plots and charts for finance, statistics and other areas.
Automated visualization aesthetics CDF automates graphics detailing with algorithmic methods to provide publication-quality visual material.
Computation	CDF	PDF	JS	HTML5	Flash	Java	TeX	EPUB™ 3.0.1	MS Office™
Comprehensive computational algorithms Thanks to the Wolfram Engine, CDF has access to the world's largest set of mathematical capabilities and algorithms—fully integrated and without the need for additional tools.
Fully integrated specialist functionality CDF includes built-in specialized functions for a wide range of areas, such as image processing, graphs and networks, statistics, geometric computation and machine learning.
Built-in finance and data analysis functions CDF includes comprehensive functionality in finance and data analysis—from time-value calculation and derivative computation to the most advanced data fitting.
Publication	CDF	PDF	JS	HTML5	Flash	Java	TeX	EPUB™ 3.0.1	MS Office™
Cloud-based collaboration and sharing Notebooks in the cloud can be shared directly with collaborators or an unlimited readership with no plugins required, while also offering access to code and data for scientific corroboration.
Mathematical and scientific typesetting CDF standard provides one of the most powerful mathematical typesetting systems available—the very system also used to typeset the math fomulas in all US patents.
Live math typesetting A mathematical formula can be input in a fully typeset form and then immediately evaluated to produce typeset output that can be edited and reevaluated.
Retargetable documents A single CDF document can transform into many different forms—an article, presentation, report, infographic and application—without much effort.
MathML support Not only does CDF support import and export of the MathML standard, its semantic-faithful approach delivers unprecedented typesetting quality. It is no wonder that Wolfram Research was a major force behind the MathML standard.
Mobile deployment and viewing Side load notebooks and CDFs from websites, email and other applications with Wolfram Player on iOS.

« Features of CDF Documents The Power behind CDF »

Computable Document Format

Documents come alive with the power of computation

How Does CDF Compare to Other Technologies?

General Usability

Interactivity

Graphics

Computation

Publication