3 ms·

Somewhat OT: is it just me or does anyone else find it utterly ironic that scribd, a site dedicated to helping people avoid dealing with the PDF browser plugin

by groaner 17y ago

Somewhat OT: is it just me or does anyone else find it utterly ironic that scribd, a site dedicated to helping people avoid dealing with the PDF browser plugin mess, is intentionally going through the trouble of converting their source document to PDF just so they can display it in their viewer? There's dogfooding, and then there's this. I'm not sure what to make of it.

ramchip 17y ago
Why is it ironic? I wouldn't talk about the trouble of converting their source document to PDF, since PDF already is the standard format for publishing presentations. Every scientist I know who makes presentations in PowerPoint exports to PDF when transmitting them to other people, mainly to minimize version conflicts and people ripping off their content. PS and PDF are also the standard output of LaTeX. scribd exists because PDF browser plugins kind of suck, not because PDF itself sucks.
- blasdel 17y ago
  The epic shittiness of Acrobat Reader 7 is just how scribd got traction -- they don't really give a shit about PDF viewers -- their raison d'têre is to be the Youtube of documents. Their Flash viewer is terrible (doesn't work at all on Linux) and their site is largely hostile to the idea of you actually reading the content. I had an involved email conversation with one of the founders after slamming their iPaper flash viewer here before, but nothing ultimately came of it. Choose life. Choose Google's pure-JS document viewer: http://docs.google.com/viewer http://docs.google.com/viewer
  - hga 17y ago
    "their site is largely hostile to the idea of you actually reading the content" Yeah; I don't get that, although this item helps to explain why.
- chronomex 17y ago
  > PS and PDF are also the standard output of LaTeX. Erm, I thought that DVI was the default output medium.
  - ramchip 17y ago
    I meant standard as in, that's what people turn their Latex into when they publish it. But I take blame for the bad wording, latex itself does output DVI :)
  - wtallis 17y ago
    I'm pretty sure that pdflatex is used far more widely than plain latex these days, given that it is simpler to use and makes it easier to take advantage of PDF features.
- axod 17y ago
  >> "PDF browser plugins kind of suck" Apparently this is true on windows. Works fantastically on Mac though, even iPhone.

by groaner 17y ago

ramchip 17y ago

Why is it ironic? I wouldn't talk about the trouble of converting their source document to PDF, since PDF already is the standard format for publishing presentations. Every scientist I know who makes presentations in PowerPoint exports to PDF when transmitting them to other people, mainly to minimize version conflicts and people ripping off their content. PS and PDF are also the standard output of LaTeX. scribd exists because PDF browser plugins kind of suck, not because PDF itself sucks.

blasdel 17y ago
The epic shittiness of Acrobat Reader 7 is just how scribd got traction -- they don't really give a shit about PDF viewers -- their raison d'têre is to be the Youtube of documents. Their Flash viewer is terrible (doesn't work at all on Linux) and their site is largely hostile to the idea of you actually reading the content. I had an involved email conversation with one of the founders after slamming their iPaper flash viewer here before, but nothing ultimately came of it. Choose life. Choose Google's pure-JS document viewer: http://docs.google.com/viewer http://docs.google.com/viewer
- hga 17y ago
  "their site is largely hostile to the idea of you actually reading the content" Yeah; I don't get that, although this item helps to explain why.
chronomex 17y ago
> PS and PDF are also the standard output of LaTeX. Erm, I thought that DVI was the default output medium.
- ramchip 17y ago
  I meant standard as in, that's what people turn their Latex into when they publish it. But I take blame for the bad wording, latex itself does output DVI :)
- wtallis 17y ago
  I'm pretty sure that pdflatex is used far more widely than plain latex these days, given that it is simpler to use and makes it easier to take advantage of PDF features.
axod 17y ago
>> "PDF browser plugins kind of suck" Apparently this is true on windows. Works fantastically on Mac though, even iPhone.