3 ms·

I appreciate the good news from Google, but I've often wondered why PDFs are so important in 'academic and scientific circles'. It seems that some sort of HTML

I appreciate the good news from Google, but I've often wondered why PDFs are so important in 'academic and scientific circles'. It seems that some sort of HTML solution would ultimately work better. It's certainly a very flexible format, easy to annotate, and easy to search. I'm often frustrated by the the difficulty of searching a large collection of PDFs or providing clean annotations when I'm reading papers. I still looking for tools that are good at both of these things. Why don't we use HTML or something similar for making papers available? In any case, thanks Google.

scott_s 16y ago
I've wondered the same thing myself, and I haven't come up with an answer I like. I think the reasons are mostly historical. Conference and journal proceedings are still literally printed, but - at least in my part of CS - most people read them on the computer. I'll print out papers that I think are really important, but I could do that with HTML, too. I think it will take time or better technology to overcome the bias that we have when we see a good looking pdf document. It says "professional" in a way webpages don't, although I recognize this is completely irrational.
riobard 16y ago
Papers are, as the name implies, intended to print on dead trees. At least in the academia world you'd like to be published. PDF is the (only?) solution that allows dot-perfect control on paper. No web technology currently addresses this issue in a satisfying way, not to mention lack of complex math/chemistry/etc formulas. Even the use of specialized symbols on the web is pain.
coliveira 16y ago
HTML is not even close to provide the level of support needed for math in scientific papers. Using HTML is like going back 30 years, when we had things like troff, and later TeX.

3 ms·

I appreciate the good news from Google, but I've often wondered why PDFs are so important in 'academic and scientific circles'. It seems that some sort of HTML

by joshrule 16y ago

scott_s 16y ago
I've wondered the same thing myself, and I haven't come up with an answer I like. I think the reasons are mostly historical. Conference and journal proceedings are still literally printed, but - at least in my part of CS - most people read them on the computer. I'll print out papers that I think are really important, but I could do that with HTML, too. I think it will take time or better technology to overcome the bias that we have when we see a good looking pdf document. It says "professional" in a way webpages don't, although I recognize this is completely irrational.
riobard 16y ago
Papers are, as the name implies, intended to print on dead trees. At least in the academia world you'd like to be published. PDF is the (only?) solution that allows dot-perfect control on paper. No web technology currently addresses this issue in a satisfying way, not to mention lack of complex math/chemistry/etc formulas. Even the use of specialized symbols on the web is pain.
coliveira 16y ago
HTML is not even close to provide the level of support needed for math in scientific papers. Using HTML is like going back 30 years, when we had things like troff, and later TeX.