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I think some part of the Scribd hating of late is that — at least on osx — pdfs are actually pretty enjoyable. Scribd does a good thing given that they have to

by tel 18y ago

I think some part of the Scribd hating of late is that — at least on osx — pdfs are actually pretty enjoyable. Scribd does a good thing given that they have to operate online through flash, but having pdfs actually be convenient at an OS level trumps that. I know it's no help for those stuck using Adobe, but it is, from my experience, some part of an explanation.

tx 18y ago
PDFs are very nice on Gnome too. The default reader is super-fast and PDFs really feel like nicely formatted text files. PDF simply rocks. Why, oh why, don't they convert everything into PDFs or (better) HTML?! Scribd is solving a real problem which exists but their approach is the most perverted way imaginable... View your docs... through a FLASH PLUGIN! Even converting them into high-res JPEGs would have been alot better.
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  I disagree. The Gnome document viewer also opens another window--I hate popups, as they're disorienting. So, it's faster than Acrobat by a large margin...but it pops up, and is still generally slower than Scribd. I simply don't find PDF to be a an acceptable substitute for HTML when it comes to reading. So, I agree that converting to HTML would be better...it's technically a much larger challenge (click on the View as HTML link at Google for a Word or PDF document...and you'll see how well--or, not so well, in this case--a huge mega-corp with tons of cash, tons of smart engineers, and the obvious desire to do something useful in that direction, solves the problem). I may not like Flash, but at least it works in the browser.
watmough 18y ago
Yes, if you have a decent screen, PDFs are pretty good. And on the Mac, they are also pretty damn fast. scribd is quite impressive for what it does, but Flash is a cruddy interface for dealing with multi-page documents. Add in the lack of recognition for the scroll-wheel, and poor font-rendering compared to native, and scribd becomes an active annoyance.

by tel 18y ago

tx 18y ago

PDFs are very nice on Gnome too. The default reader is super-fast and PDFs really feel like nicely formatted text files. PDF simply rocks. Why, oh why, don't they convert everything into PDFs or (better) HTML?! Scribd is solving a real problem which exists but their approach is the most perverted way imaginable... View your docs... through a FLASH PLUGIN! Even converting them into high-res JPEGs would have been alot better.

SwellJoe 18y ago
I disagree. The Gnome document viewer also opens another window--I hate popups, as they're disorienting. So, it's faster than Acrobat by a large margin...but it pops up, and is still generally slower than Scribd. I simply don't find PDF to be a an acceptable substitute for HTML when it comes to reading. So, I agree that converting to HTML would be better...it's technically a much larger challenge (click on the View as HTML link at Google for a Word or PDF document...and you'll see how well--or, not so well, in this case--a huge mega-corp with tons of cash, tons of smart engineers, and the obvious desire to do something useful in that direction, solves the problem). I may not like Flash, but at least it works in the browser.

watmough 18y ago

Yes, if you have a decent screen, PDFs are pretty good. And on the Mac, they are also pretty damn fast. scribd is quite impressive for what it does, but Flash is a cruddy interface for dealing with multi-page documents. Add in the lack of recognition for the scroll-wheel, and poor font-rendering compared to native, and scribd becomes an active annoyance.