Publisher FAQ

Scribd Platform

What is the Scribd Platform?

The Scribd Platform is a broad set of tools and services designed to help you customize, integrate, deploy, and monetize fully-formatted documents on your website without extra software. The platform's components - the Scribd API, the iPaper JavaScript API, and QuickSwitch - vary greatly in their complexity and specific features, so be sure to review the online documentation so that you can determine which one is best for you. Our platform's most visible element is iPaper - a fast, light, embeddable document viewer.

Why did we build the Scribd Platform?

We built the Scribd Platform because so many of you asked for it! Scribd's document conversion, display, and embedding features are incredibly popular, and people from all over the world have asked for a way to provide the same services on their own websites. The Scribd Platform is consistent with Scribd's mission of making it easier to share documents online. We hope that the Scribd Platform will help bring the rich, formatted documents to every website on the Internet.

Can I host iPaper on my own servers?

Not at this time. iPaper runs on a professionally managed, highly secure server cluster, guaranteeing that your documents will be accessible and safe at all times. Our server cluster allows us to offer high performance for processing and searching, no matter how many documents you have, for free.

What kind of infrastructure is behind iPaper and Scribd?

iPaper's processing back-end runs on a highly scalable grid of several hundred servers. Our infrastructure has been battle-tested by scaling Scribd.com to support tens of millions of users and one of the largest collections of textual information ever assembled.

Where are my documents stored?

iPaper documents are stored using the Simple Storage Service (S3) from Amazon.com, a secure and reliable system that's backed up and protected at multiple data centers around the world. S3's relatively low cost helps us to keep Scribd free.

I have confidential documents that I need to keep secure. Can I use the Scribd Platform?

Absolutely. The Scribd Platform is built to support Enterprise-class secure document viewing and storage. If you make your documents "private" using the API, they will not be shown on Scribd.com and will not be accessible except through your application. Many large enterprises are using iPaper to display highly confidential material.

I have a lot of documents. Can Scribd handle it?

No problem. Our server grid processes millions of documents per day. The new Scribd Platform with iPaper is designed for web scale.

Does Scribd offer uptime guarantees or service level agreements (SLA) for users of the Scribd Platform?

Not at this time. For an eloquent explanation of the reasons behind this, see this post. We take the reliability of our service extremely seriously. We have redundancy at every level of our infrastructure and a detailed disaster recovery plan.

How do I apply for an API account?

If you're not yet a Scribd member, you'll need to register for a free user account on Scribd.com. Then use your Scribd username to sign up for a developer account from the Scribd Platform home page.

iPaper JavaScript API

Can I tell my embedded iPaper to automatically open to a specific page?

Yes. You can use the iPaper JavaScript API to set default parameters, including opening page number, height, width, and document privacy. The exact syntax is described in the iPaper JavaScript API documentation.