4 ms·

I personally think PDF's are a terrible legacy format with unnecessary complexities[1] and most uses of PDF's do not involve printing so the typesetting argumen

I personally think PDF's are a terrible legacy format with unnecessary complexities[1] and most uses of PDF's do not involve printing so the typesetting arguments don't make sense to me. For the vast majority of use cases it's far more important to be readable on phone, tablet, and computer. I was surprised when the author mentioned iBooks doesn't support scrolling view, so I tried it myself. Turns out iBooks on macOS does not support scrolling for ePub files, but it does on iOS and iPadOS. Very strange decision by Apple. 1. https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-deep-dive-into-nso-zero-click.html https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-deep-dive-i...

baq 3y ago
but but but... if I really need to print something, a PDF is the most reliable times portable route. I guess a multipage svg would work, too, maybe, if exported to a pdf to properly print multiple pages first. (Looking at you, inkscape...)
adrian_b 3y ago
PDF is an annoying specification, but there exists absolutely no replacement for it. I have never seen any kind of technical documentation published in any other format than PDF that is comfortable for reading and searching, even when that is done on a mobile phone. I do not want a document that changes appearance depending on the device used for reading or depending on its temporary state, like window size. I want a document whose layout has been well conceived by its author and which is fixed, regardless of what I happen to use for reading it. When I happen to read it on a smaller screen or window, except for trivial text-only documents, I do not want changes in layout, but I only want a smart reader, with comfortable means for fast zoom and pan, and which does not have stupid behaviors (like some Android readers), for instance where scrolling vertically (including Page Up/Page Down) also moves the document horizontally (preventing the easy reading of a column of text). The traditional recommendations for the maximum width of a text column are good enough, if observed, to ensure comfortable reading even on a mobile phone. Only when the author breaks the traditional typographic rules by making extra-wide columns, the reading on a mobile phone becomes inconvenient.
- broscillator 3y ago
  I find reading PDFs on my phone and even on my kindle really uncomfortable. On my phone I have to either zoom in or turn on landscape mode (which usually means turn it on globally, I can't do it just for the reader app). On kindle, a full page has too small font due to so much margin, and fitting the width shows me 80% of the page, and then I have to scroll down for the last 20% and my eyes have to find where exactly I was reading.
  - baq 3y ago
    I'm keeping my not-sure-how-old iPad 5 around specifically because it's the device form factor to read pdfs.
    - broscillator 3y ago
      That kind of highlights how non-versatile PDF is despite some comments. However it does sound handy, I kinda want a dedicated tablet for sheet music.
      - baq 3y ago
        You're absolutely right PDFs are super rigid, but that's kinda their point - so with the proper device, like a sheet of paper or a 10+ inch tablet screen it makes sense. Would I prefer more content to be reflowable etc.? Yes - but with a tablet it isn't strictly necessary, just nice to have.
      - rchaud 3y ago
        It's plenty versatile. Not everything needs to be phone-friendly. Phone screens weren't designed for reading PDF-size documents. Even so, options exist to reflow the text, view in landscape or pan and zoom.
        broscillator 3y ago
        There is one device which fits PDFs well, an ipad. It can be fairly awkward on laptops and deskptops as well. > view in landscape or pan and zoom. This is awkward, that's the issue I mentioned above, how annoying is to have to do that if you're reading for a 30-60 minute session.
jxdxbx 3y ago
people don’t want fixed layout documents only for printing. they want them because they want to fix the layout of their documents more than they care about small screens.
- crabmusket 3y ago
  Those people are welcome to continue using PDFs, and I really hope that in some utopian future that they will receive a lot of requests from their readers along the lines of 'can I please have a portable epub version too?'
BlueTemplar 3y ago
Not sure about this specific case, but I suspect at least some of these readers might do it for consistency with e-paper devices, where no scrolling is an hardware limitation (very low refresh rates, weak processor, battery savings). So it seems to be a bad idea to try to have a one-size fits all standard : we're much better off with two digital document standards : one with full multimedia and interactive capabilities (short of networking), and another, a subset of the previous with the limitations like : monochrome, no multimedia, interactivity mostly limited to (still in-document) hyperlinks... And guess what, we already have two formats that are almost there ! HTML (see also MHTML=EML) and EPUB. (And of course a 3rd one for physical archival and the rare digital fixed layout documents, for which PDF/A already seems to be decent enough.)

baq 3y ago

but but but... if I really need to print something, a PDF is the most reliable times portable route. I guess a multipage svg would work, too, maybe, if exported to a pdf to properly print multiple pages first. (Looking at you, inkscape...)

adrian_b 3y ago

PDF is an annoying specification, but there exists absolutely no replacement for it. I have never seen any kind of technical documentation published in any other format than PDF that is comfortable for reading and searching, even when that is done on a mobile phone. I do not want a document that changes appearance depending on the device used for reading or depending on its temporary state, like window size. I want a document whose layout has been well conceived by its author and which is fixed, regardless of what I happen to use for reading it. When I happen to read it on a smaller screen or window, except for trivial text-only documents, I do not want changes in layout, but I only want a smart reader, with comfortable means for fast zoom and pan, and which does not have stupid behaviors (like some Android readers), for instance where scrolling vertically (including Page Up/Page Down) also moves the document horizontally (preventing the easy reading of a column of text). The traditional recommendations for the maximum width of a text column are good enough, if observed, to ensure comfortable reading even on a mobile phone. Only when the author breaks the traditional typographic rules by making extra-wide columns, the reading on a mobile phone becomes inconvenient.

broscillator 3y ago
I find reading PDFs on my phone and even on my kindle really uncomfortable. On my phone I have to either zoom in or turn on landscape mode (which usually means turn it on globally, I can't do it just for the reader app). On kindle, a full page has too small font due to so much margin, and fitting the width shows me 80% of the page, and then I have to scroll down for the last 20% and my eyes have to find where exactly I was reading.
- baq 3y ago
  I'm keeping my not-sure-how-old iPad 5 around specifically because it's the device form factor to read pdfs.
  - broscillator 3y ago
    That kind of highlights how non-versatile PDF is despite some comments. However it does sound handy, I kinda want a dedicated tablet for sheet music.
    - baq 3y ago
      You're absolutely right PDFs are super rigid, but that's kinda their point - so with the proper device, like a sheet of paper or a 10+ inch tablet screen it makes sense. Would I prefer more content to be reflowable etc.? Yes - but with a tablet it isn't strictly necessary, just nice to have.
    - rchaud 3y ago
      It's plenty versatile. Not everything needs to be phone-friendly. Phone screens weren't designed for reading PDF-size documents. Even so, options exist to reflow the text, view in landscape or pan and zoom.
      - broscillator 3y ago
        There is one device which fits PDFs well, an ipad. It can be fairly awkward on laptops and deskptops as well. > view in landscape or pan and zoom. This is awkward, that's the issue I mentioned above, how annoying is to have to do that if you're reading for a 30-60 minute session.

jxdxbx 3y ago

people don’t want fixed layout documents only for printing. they want them because they want to fix the layout of their documents more than they care about small screens.

crabmusket 3y ago
Those people are welcome to continue using PDFs, and I really hope that in some utopian future that they will receive a lot of requests from their readers along the lines of 'can I please have a portable epub version too?'

BlueTemplar 3y ago

Not sure about this specific case, but I suspect at least some of these readers might do it for consistency with e-paper devices, where no scrolling is an hardware limitation (very low refresh rates, weak processor, battery savings). So it seems to be a bad idea to try to have a one-size fits all standard : we're much better off with two digital document standards : one with full multimedia and interactive capabilities (short of networking), and another, a subset of the previous with the limitations like : monochrome, no multimedia, interactivity mostly limited to (still in-document) hyperlinks... And guess what, we already have two formats that are almost there ! HTML (see also MHTML=EML) and EPUB. (And of course a 3rd one for physical archival and the rare digital fixed layout documents, for which PDF/A already seems to be decent enough.)