4 ms·

I'd rather read a well set, two-column PDF online than having to deal with pop-ups, ads, dark patterns, javascript problems etc.

binarymax 6y ago
Are those the only two options?
- Lev1a 6y ago
  Seems like that's more and more the case nowadays. One of the things I absolutely despise about the rise of JS is that many many modern sites won't display anything (just the white BG) unless I allow 3rd party scripts. Is displaying simple blogposts and other textual information with the occasional image or video embed so hard that one needs to load often multiple MBs of JS from multiple external sites? It's infuriating.
TheSoftwareGuy 6y ago
Pretty sure you can embed javascript in a PDF document, actually.
- davrosthedalek 6y ago
  Yep, but as far as I know, only works with Acrobat Reader. No other reader I tried supports it. Would be nice for presentations.
  - jwilk 6y ago
    AFAIK at least these support JS: MuPDF, Okular, PDF-XChange, Foxit Reader, PDFium.
    - davrosthedalek 6y ago
      I'm pretty sure that at least Okular does not support enough to make the animation with the latex animate package work. But maybe I held it wrong. I'm pretty sure I also tried Foxit and MuPDF for the same thing. I'll have another look. While I despise frame transition animations etc, for some stuff some nice animations are really helpful in explaining concepts.
      - jwilk 6y ago
        https://texample.net/media/tikz/examples/PDF/wankel-motor.pdf https://texample.net/media/tikz/examples/PDF/wankel-motor.pd... works for me in Okular 1.10.3.
        davrosthedalek 6y ago
        Thanks! Nice, works with my okular 1.9.3 too, after asking whether it should show forms. The PDF-X I have on windows asks also (I think they use the same engine, poppler?), but then shows a blue rectangle if I enable them. I'm pretty sure that was what my experience was generally when I looked at it the last time (2 years ago), so probably some updates in the engine which made it work now.
- slowmovintarget 6y ago
  You can also (and really ought to) switch off the JavaScript engine completely in Acrobat reader. There isn't a legitimate reason to run Javascript during the viewing of a PDF. Give me a link... I might visit it in a browser.
  - jimhefferon 6y ago
    > There isn't a legitimate reason to run Javascript during the viewing of a PDF. I have a book, and I'd like to display video clips. AIUI, that requires that the viewer has JS.
londons_explore 6y ago
If there were lots of people like you, soon there'd be publishers inventing the "ad background", the "ad paragraph" and the "cookie consent cover page"
SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
2-column PDFs are fine when printed, or on a tall full-size screen. But on a 16:9 screen, smartphone, or small tablet they're annoying, since you have to zoom in to read the text and then do a weird diagonal scroll between columns every page. For all of these cases single-column half-width with twice as many pages would generally be better.
- davrosthedalek 6y ago
  I have an ultra-wide. I open the window on half of the screen, and can work on the other half. Very convenient. But I get your point. PDF are not optimal for sure. And personal mileage may vary, I'm very sensitive to having proper text spacing and so on.

binarymax 6y ago

Are those the only two options?

Lev1a 6y ago
Seems like that's more and more the case nowadays. One of the things I absolutely despise about the rise of JS is that many many modern sites won't display anything (just the white BG) unless I allow 3rd party scripts. Is displaying simple blogposts and other textual information with the occasional image or video embed so hard that one needs to load often multiple MBs of JS from multiple external sites? It's infuriating.

TheSoftwareGuy 6y ago

Pretty sure you can embed javascript in a PDF document, actually.

davrosthedalek 6y ago
Yep, but as far as I know, only works with Acrobat Reader. No other reader I tried supports it. Would be nice for presentations.
- jwilk 6y ago
  AFAIK at least these support JS: MuPDF, Okular, PDF-XChange, Foxit Reader, PDFium.
  - davrosthedalek 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure that at least Okular does not support enough to make the animation with the latex animate package work. But maybe I held it wrong. I'm pretty sure I also tried Foxit and MuPDF for the same thing. I'll have another look. While I despise frame transition animations etc, for some stuff some nice animations are really helpful in explaining concepts.
    - jwilk 6y ago
      https://texample.net/media/tikz/examples/PDF/wankel-motor.pdf https://texample.net/media/tikz/examples/PDF/wankel-motor.pd... works for me in Okular 1.10.3.
      - davrosthedalek 6y ago
        Thanks! Nice, works with my okular 1.9.3 too, after asking whether it should show forms. The PDF-X I have on windows asks also (I think they use the same engine, poppler?), but then shows a blue rectangle if I enable them. I'm pretty sure that was what my experience was generally when I looked at it the last time (2 years ago), so probably some updates in the engine which made it work now.
slowmovintarget 6y ago
You can also (and really ought to) switch off the JavaScript engine completely in Acrobat reader. There isn't a legitimate reason to run Javascript during the viewing of a PDF. Give me a link... I might visit it in a browser.
- jimhefferon 6y ago
  > There isn't a legitimate reason to run Javascript during the viewing of a PDF. I have a book, and I'd like to display video clips. AIUI, that requires that the viewer has JS.

londons_explore 6y ago

If there were lots of people like you, soon there'd be publishers inventing the "ad background", the "ad paragraph" and the "cookie consent cover page"

SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago

2-column PDFs are fine when printed, or on a tall full-size screen. But on a 16:9 screen, smartphone, or small tablet they're annoying, since you have to zoom in to read the text and then do a weird diagonal scroll between columns every page. For all of these cases single-column half-width with twice as many pages would generally be better.

davrosthedalek 6y ago
I have an ultra-wide. I open the window on half of the screen, and can work on the other half. Very convenient. But I get your point. PDF are not optimal for sure. And personal mileage may vary, I'm very sensitive to having proper text spacing and so on.