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A hill I hope one day to die on: almost every PDF I've interacted with in my adult life should have been a self-contained HTML page or file. All the benefits of
by crabmusket 3y ago
A hill I hope one day to die on: almost every PDF I've interacted with in my adult life should have been a self-contained HTML page or file. All the benefits of PDFs are irrelevant to me as someone who isn't a book or magazine publisher.
- agumonkey 3y agoIsn't there a pdfml format where you convert the pdf stack/tree, expose transforms and expand all non text stream into readable utf8 ?
- ra1231963 3y agoPdfml is a great name because everytime I work with pdfs, I think fml
- LesZedCB 3y agobut wasn't that the point of pdf? we consumers of PDFs are the downstream users, not the target demographic. PDF solved a problem for publishers and magazines, not for consumers needing to read properly typeset digital documents. we just got the bread crumbs and then they became standard epub I believe are essentially what we as programmers would come up with, xml, html, and style sheets disclaimer: this is only partially informed speculation
- lxgr 3y agoePub indeed sounds like the standards-based answer here, but there are simply no great readers for it that I know of that don’t insist on somehow making every opened doc part of some library, assuming it must clearly be a book.
- pasc1878 3y agoFirefox addin for ePub Part of calibre can be used as just a reader (it might not be packaged easily for the user but can be done from the command line) Adobe Digital Editions (this does also have a library and does try to make you add it when you stop reading) I suspect Fbreader might be OK - its earlier versions were but I have stopped using it after it added things. Plus the basic unzip the file and just look at the files with a web browser. These are just ones I have on my machine now.
- niutech 3y agoHave a look at Bene: https://nota-lang.github.io/bene/ https://nota-lang.github.io/bene/
- blooalien 3y agoOkular (the default standard document viewer on the KDE desktop) opens ePubs, PDFs, plaintext, and I'm sure other formats as well. It also has highlighting and annotation capabilities. I'm quite sure every other operating systems' GUI environment has at least one similar app. I know MacOS has a "Preview" app built in that opens a zillion file formats in a read-only viewer.
- wolverine876 3y ago> PDF solved a problem for publishers and magazines, not for consumers needing to read properly typeset digital documents. we just got the bread crumbs and then they became standard I'm not quite sure what you are saying: PDFs of course provide "properly typeset digital documents" to consumers. Do you mean that consumers don't need or want those? I think they do - look how much effort is put into presentation in every format on every platform. I think, more importantly, PDF also provides consumers with a high-quality document they know they can read every easily, anywhere - any platform, any time, etc. - with just a click. What other format comes close? Imagine not having it - do you have the app to open the document? will it look like the original? when someone refers to the diagram on page 54, is the pagination the same for your copy/platform/etc.? Also there is annotation, long-term presrvation, authentication (signatures), etc. but I don't want to sound like a broken record.
- abeyer 3y agoExactly. And epub will be an option for that just as soon as we have an html+css format that renders exactly the same on different clients and platforms when authored by someone who doesn't know what they're doing... so roughly never.
- pasc1878 3y agoBut to read something e.g. a manual it should render differently on a phone or a big screen they are different sizes. If it renders the same then it is not fit for purpose that is reading on a screen. There are reasons to use pdf if the document must be the same on all devices but you need more than a plain pdf as you could edit a pdf to change 1s to 9s.
- wolverine876 3y agoYou've narrowed the spec to that one requirement. There are other requirements too, that PDF meets very well. No technology is a universal answer. You want to understand the job and then find the right tool.
- m463 3y agoI guess I am a publisher - I make PDF files all the time with my scanner (or ios notes scanner function) I also love to get .pdf manuals of all the things I buy. I do not want to crawl through someone's website with chat popups and other engagement techniques to find out how to use or fix what I already purchased. Some of them are 40 years old, but as readable as new ones. I also have lots of things like financial documents I've received that are identical and readable even 20 or more years later. Although it isn't the cool-thing-of-the-day, I think pdf has its place. It might be like phone/laptop users vs server users. Most people with a phone or laptop want the new best hot updated thing immediately. The server folks want nothing to change, ever.
- boxed 3y agoYou can make a PDF have 200 pages of ads too you know :P
- kyawzazaw 3y agoThis has been useful for me https://www.manualslib.com/ https://www.manualslib.com/
- calvinmorrison 3y agoPdfs just aren't good at big manuals. It's like opening an old dictionary. I prefer a wiki like hierarchy of hyperlinks with many documents. Just my 2c
- recursive 3y agoWhat is it about PDF that makes it more suitable than HTML for any of these uses? HTML created 20 years ago will still be rendered the same. HTML doesn't require chat widgets.
- hacketthfk 3y agoHTML relies on the browser default style sheet which changes over time and it's browser specific. Not a huge thing, but enough to break the page layout.
- wolverine876 3y agoHow do you do annotation? And how do you know you can read the document decades into the future? Also, for longer texts, isn't it harder to read without the high-quality readability enhancements, such as typefaces, layouts, etc.?
- soco 3y agoNot everybody does annotations. Me or my family don't and I just asked my team mates, they don't either. Actually we are totally fine with viewing PDFs in the browser and that for sure speaks in favor of a HTML-based alternative. I'm pretty sure I could still open old saved HTML pages, but I don't have any to test right now. And we do have headings in HTML, right.
- wolverine876 3y agoWhat do you conclude? You and your circle don't use annotations, and therefore the world doesn't need them? I hope you guys like Szechuan food, because otherwise there are going to be a lot of unhappy people. Also, you're missing out.
- Evidlo 3y agoThe PDF spec supports annotations. Handwritten, text, images, etc.
- wolverine876 3y agoYes, I meant, how is that done in HTML.
- crabmusket 3y agoI assume you're asking these questions about HTML, right? As compared to the assumed good answers PDF has to these questions? > How do you do annotation? Same as PDF - if you want that, get an app that has that feature. > And how do you know you can read the document decades into the future? Same as PDF, except that HTML is a simpler format. > Also, for longer texts, isn't it harder to read without the high-quality readability enhancements, such as typefaces, layouts, etc.? HTML has all these things? (With CSS, I mean.)