6 ms·

You're describing PDF files, but unfortunately Adobe didn't invest much time or money into making them interactive with a scripting language.

nextaccountic 5y ago
PDF has a limitation: it defines page size and the layout of everything fixed to this page, and thus can't do responsive layout like HTML can (reorganizing stuff in the page to match the screen size)
- mmh0000 5y ago
  I wouldn't call that a limitation. In fact that is one of the major selling points of the PDF format. The document looks as intended* by the creator on all platforms whether display or print media. * Yes, I know, PDF doesn't -always- do this, but a well designed PDF generally does.
  - Tagbert 5y ago
    True, but the rigid layout is what makes PDF unsuitable for some use cases. It’s main use is to represent a printed page of a very specific size. Anything outside that just requires too much flexibility.
  - vgel 5y ago
    It is a limitation. Anyone who's ever tried to read a PDF journal article on their phone has experienced it. (and don't even get me started on Unicode copy/paste...) HTML can be styled in a fixed layout if desired, and reflowed by a reader mode if needed. PDF can't be styled in a responsive way, and there's no (easily accessible) reader mode equivalent for PDFs. HTML is a far better document format than PDF.
    - bee_rider 5y ago
      A significant advantage of the two column journal format (although still they end up feeling pretty clunky on a phone).
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > there's no (easily accessible) reader mode equivalent for PDFs. It’s called Liquid Mode in Reader, and it is, in fact, easily accessible. > HTML is a far better document format than PDF. HTML is better for some things, PDF for others. That's why PDF is widely used on the web when HTML is available.
      - bananamerica 5y ago
        Liquid mode only works we for a subset of PDF files. And sometimes it doesn't work at all.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        Reader mode only works well for a subset of HTML files, too.
        bananamerica 5y ago
        Yes, of course.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Feature. The dimensioning problem isn't PDFs. The dimensioning problem is computer displays. Get yourself an e-ink display of 10" or 13" (standard dimensions offered by the patent-monopoly vendor across multiple OEMs), and discover that online reading of PDFs is 1) quite pleasant (so long as the underlying PDF formatting itself is sane) and 2) vastly preferable to either HTML or "fluid" ePub or Mobi file formats. Book formats developed over about 500 years largely guided by the capabilities and limitations of human eyes and hands. Typical mass-market books range in size from roughly 6" to 12" diagonal measure. Yes, there are smaller and larger formats, these are deviations from the norm and impose compromises for other concerns (portability for smaller formats, resolution for larger ones, typically pictoral or graphical in nature). A 5" or 6" mobile device presents less display area than an index card. Laptop displays are too short to display a portrait-mode document one page at a time, and in almost all cases too small to present a 2-page up display. (You can verify this yourself trivially at the Internet Archive using its BookReader, e.g., https://archive.org/details/UnderstandingPhotoTypesetting/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater https://archive.org/details/UnderstandingPhotoTypesetting/pa...) When wedding PDFs with an appropriate display technology, the frustrations fixed-proportion PDF display disappear. This does rely on the PDF being dimensioned for a typical book size, though there's considerable flexibility here, and any dimensions from ~6" to well over 12" will tend to be readable, there's no need for precisely matching device to document size. I'm saying this as someone who's long railed against PDFs for documentation. My mind's been changed.
  - LordDragonfang 5y ago
    >Get yourself an e-ink display of 10" or 13" (standard dimensions offered by the patent-monopoly vendor across multiple OEMs), and discover that online reading of PDFs is 1) quite pleasant (so long as the underlying PDF formatting itself is sane) and 2) vastly preferable to either HTML or "fluid" ePub or Mobi file formats. Notably this is not the standard size for most e-ink devices though, on which pdfs are a pain to read. Mobi/epub files, in contrast, are fantastic on my kindle (and on my phone, and on desktop). If your argument has to boil down to "this file format is great if you just buy a specific device for viewing them, and eschew viewing them on any of the other devices you already own and use more frequently", I'd say your argument provides more evidence for the counterpoint than for the one you're arguing. I'm happy you found a good way to consume a fundamentally outdated format, but PDFs are a bad format for the majority of use cases.
Encounter 5y ago
Think about how much worse PDF exploits would be if they did!
asciimov 5y ago
The problem with PDF's has always been the layman can't create them without some expensive Adobe program.
- TylerE 5y ago
  This is categorically false. There have always been other tools for producing PDF (E.g. TeX) and there are also tons of free converters, print-to-PDF drivers, etc.
  - LordDragonfang 5y ago
    I have never seen anyone I would remotely describe as a layman using TeX.
- garbagecoder 5y ago
  macOS hasn’t had this problem in 20 years.
  - elcapitan 5y ago
    Yes, it's literally just Print dialogue -> Save as pdf. Also worth noting that the PDF preview on the Mac has very nice simple editing capabilities to combine pages, delete pages, crop etc.
- samus 5y ago
  Any modern office suite (MS Office, Libreoffice, Google Apps) has PDF export. Many image editing applications can do it too.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> but unfortunately Adobe didn't invest much time or money into making them interactive with a scripting language. Yes, they did. (Non-Adobe readers often don't support JS, though some do, but Adobe definitely built the support for interactivity.) Also 3D content and a lot of other things most people probably aren't aware of, because they are peripheral to the common use cases of PDF.
nine_k 5y ago
Emphatically no. HTML can be responsive, like an electronic document should. PDF was designed to faithfully represent paper, and it has all the fluidity and customizability of a stack of printed paper. It's also completely anti-semantic: it has no document structure beside pages, and each page just describes how to put ink onto paper. I think that the principal application area of PDF is just that: to represent paper, for printing purposes. For everything else, it's not exactly great.
naikrovek 5y ago
> Adobe didn't invest much time or money into making them interactive with a scripting language. yes they did. JavaScript, though I have no idea if there is a DOM or anything like it. pdf is kinda messed up in ways like that.
zffr 5y ago
PDFs actually have some support for javascript! I don't know any serious use for it and some PDF viewers refuse to support it (ex: Apple's Preview app), but it does exist.
- jraph 5y ago
  Form verification for instance, if I remember correctly.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  PDF would have probably been better without it but Adobe couldn't resist adding new features so they could flog more copies of Acrobat.

nextaccountic 5y ago

PDF has a limitation: it defines page size and the layout of everything fixed to this page, and thus can't do responsive layout like HTML can (reorganizing stuff in the page to match the screen size)

mmh0000 5y ago
I wouldn't call that a limitation. In fact that is one of the major selling points of the PDF format. The document looks as intended* by the creator on all platforms whether display or print media. * Yes, I know, PDF doesn't -always- do this, but a well designed PDF generally does.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  True, but the rigid layout is what makes PDF unsuitable for some use cases. It’s main use is to represent a printed page of a very specific size. Anything outside that just requires too much flexibility.
- vgel 5y ago
  It is a limitation. Anyone who's ever tried to read a PDF journal article on their phone has experienced it. (and don't even get me started on Unicode copy/paste...) HTML can be styled in a fixed layout if desired, and reflowed by a reader mode if needed. PDF can't be styled in a responsive way, and there's no (easily accessible) reader mode equivalent for PDFs. HTML is a far better document format than PDF.
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    A significant advantage of the two column journal format (although still they end up feeling pretty clunky on a phone).
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > there's no (easily accessible) reader mode equivalent for PDFs. It’s called Liquid Mode in Reader, and it is, in fact, easily accessible. > HTML is a far better document format than PDF. HTML is better for some things, PDF for others. That's why PDF is widely used on the web when HTML is available.
    - bananamerica 5y ago
      Liquid mode only works we for a subset of PDF files. And sometimes it doesn't work at all.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        Reader mode only works well for a subset of HTML files, too.
        bananamerica 5y ago
        Yes, of course.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
dredmorbius 5y ago
Feature. The dimensioning problem isn't PDFs. The dimensioning problem is computer displays. Get yourself an e-ink display of 10" or 13" (standard dimensions offered by the patent-monopoly vendor across multiple OEMs), and discover that online reading of PDFs is 1) quite pleasant (so long as the underlying PDF formatting itself is sane) and 2) vastly preferable to either HTML or "fluid" ePub or Mobi file formats. Book formats developed over about 500 years largely guided by the capabilities and limitations of human eyes and hands. Typical mass-market books range in size from roughly 6" to 12" diagonal measure. Yes, there are smaller and larger formats, these are deviations from the norm and impose compromises for other concerns (portability for smaller formats, resolution for larger ones, typically pictoral or graphical in nature). A 5" or 6" mobile device presents less display area than an index card. Laptop displays are too short to display a portrait-mode document one page at a time, and in almost all cases too small to present a 2-page up display. (You can verify this yourself trivially at the Internet Archive using its BookReader, e.g., https://archive.org/details/UnderstandingPhotoTypesetting/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater https://archive.org/details/UnderstandingPhotoTypesetting/pa...) When wedding PDFs with an appropriate display technology, the frustrations fixed-proportion PDF display disappear. This does rely on the PDF being dimensioned for a typical book size, though there's considerable flexibility here, and any dimensions from ~6" to well over 12" will tend to be readable, there's no need for precisely matching device to document size. I'm saying this as someone who's long railed against PDFs for documentation. My mind's been changed.
- LordDragonfang 5y ago
  >Get yourself an e-ink display of 10" or 13" (standard dimensions offered by the patent-monopoly vendor across multiple OEMs), and discover that online reading of PDFs is 1) quite pleasant (so long as the underlying PDF formatting itself is sane) and 2) vastly preferable to either HTML or "fluid" ePub or Mobi file formats. Notably this is not the standard size for most e-ink devices though, on which pdfs are a pain to read. Mobi/epub files, in contrast, are fantastic on my kindle (and on my phone, and on desktop). If your argument has to boil down to "this file format is great if you just buy a specific device for viewing them, and eschew viewing them on any of the other devices you already own and use more frequently", I'd say your argument provides more evidence for the counterpoint than for the one you're arguing. I'm happy you found a good way to consume a fundamentally outdated format, but PDFs are a bad format for the majority of use cases.

Encounter 5y ago

Think about how much worse PDF exploits would be if they did!

asciimov 5y ago

The problem with PDF's has always been the layman can't create them without some expensive Adobe program.

TylerE 5y ago
This is categorically false. There have always been other tools for producing PDF (E.g. TeX) and there are also tons of free converters, print-to-PDF drivers, etc.
- LordDragonfang 5y ago
  I have never seen anyone I would remotely describe as a layman using TeX.
garbagecoder 5y ago
macOS hasn’t had this problem in 20 years.
- elcapitan 5y ago
  Yes, it's literally just Print dialogue -> Save as pdf. Also worth noting that the PDF preview on the Mac has very nice simple editing capabilities to combine pages, delete pages, crop etc.
samus 5y ago
Any modern office suite (MS Office, Libreoffice, Google Apps) has PDF export. Many image editing applications can do it too.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> but unfortunately Adobe didn't invest much time or money into making them interactive with a scripting language. Yes, they did. (Non-Adobe readers often don't support JS, though some do, but Adobe definitely built the support for interactivity.) Also 3D content and a lot of other things most people probably aren't aware of, because they are peripheral to the common use cases of PDF.

nine_k 5y ago

Emphatically no. HTML can be responsive, like an electronic document should. PDF was designed to faithfully represent paper, and it has all the fluidity and customizability of a stack of printed paper. It's also completely anti-semantic: it has no document structure beside pages, and each page just describes how to put ink onto paper. I think that the principal application area of PDF is just that: to represent paper, for printing purposes. For everything else, it's not exactly great.

naikrovek 5y ago

> Adobe didn't invest much time or money into making them interactive with a scripting language. yes they did. JavaScript, though I have no idea if there is a DOM or anything like it. pdf is kinda messed up in ways like that.

zffr 5y ago

PDFs actually have some support for javascript! I don't know any serious use for it and some PDF viewers refuse to support it (ex: Apple's Preview app), but it does exist.

jraph 5y ago
Form verification for instance, if I remember correctly.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
PDF would have probably been better without it but Adobe couldn't resist adding new features so they could flog more copies of Acrobat.