I read somewhere (likely here) that this oddness comes from the idea that PDF is a way of structuring documents for print first, and presentation in a user inte

I read somewhere (likely here) that this oddness comes from the idea that PDF is a way of structuring documents for print first, and presentation in a user interface is secondary. That the rendering of the document on screen is paramount as opposed to ability to manipulate the text itself. "These characters should be displayed at this position in the document precisely" It would make sense that exporting the document as HTML or Word would make this easier - as these document formats have different goals.