While I'm not particularly enamored of PDFs, they are streets ahead of the previous widespread document format, the Microsoft Word DOC. The Word DOC format had

While I'm not particularly enamored of PDFs, they are streets ahead of the previous widespread document format, the Microsoft Word DOC. The Word DOC format had the problem of becoming unreadable every few years until you managed to splash out and buy the latest and greatest Microsoft Word and its associated version of Windows. At least the PDFs remain legible pretty much indefinitely.