UK's Corporate Reports

Corporate Reports, based near Leeds, England, has provided quick and easy access to the latest financial information on UK listed companies via the Internet since 1997. In the beginning, Annual Reports and Account documents of Public Limited Companies (PLC's) were scanned in-house from the actual hard-copy originals. While this was cost effective, it was extremely labor intensive and time consuming, therefore limiting available information to a few pages, typically chairman's statements, profit-and-loss statements and balance sheets.

In 1999, research indicated to Corporate Reports that clients wanted access to full company reports and were willing to pay for the additional information. Like many of today's top companies needing to retrieve archived documentation or transfer current records, Corporate Reports recognized the limits of older methods for instantly transferring information via the Internet.

Making the Most of the Internet

For this venture to be successful, document file size needed to be small and download speeds had to be fast-not an easy endeavor when most company reports ranged from 50 to 150 pages. Secondly, companies were adamant that their financial information be reproduced for the Web with the same quality as the printed versions and that there were no mistakes in reproduction. After conducting extensive tests comparing electronic document imaging technologies, including Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF), Corporate Reports determined that LizardTech's DjVu® software provided by far the best image format for scanned online documentation.

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