DjVu is a web-centric format and software platform for distributing documents and images. It can advantageously replace PDF, PS, TIFF, JPEG, and GIF for distributing scanned documents, digital documents, or high-resolution pictures. DjVu content downloads faster, displays and renders faster, looks nicer on a screen, and consume less client resources than competing formats. DjVu images display instantly and can be smoothly zoomed and panned with no lengthy re-rendering. DjVu is used by hundreds of academic, commercial, governmental, and non-commercial web sites around the world.
DjVuLibre is an open source implementation of DjVu, distributed under the GPL. This implementation includes a viewer, a browser plugin, complete decoders, simple encoders, and a number of useful little programs. Online documentation is available.
See also DjVu among my research projects.