5 ms·

We will never get back the collective man-decades of time that has been burned by this format. When will the madness stop?

theamk 1y ago
When we get an alternative that can: (1) be stored in a single file (2) Allow tables, images and anything else that can be shown on a piece paper (3) Won't have animation, fold-out text, or anything that cannot be be shown on a piece of paper (4) won't require Javascript or access to external sites that means never.. We've got lucky we at least got PDF before "web designers" made (3) impossible, and marketers made (4) impossible
- coderatlarge 1y ago
  dvi ? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_independent_file_format https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_independent_file_form...
  - theamk 1y ago
    > For a DVI file to be printed or even properly previewed, the fonts it references must be already installed. If you want alternatives, I'd choose DjVu. But it's too late now, everyone is converged on PDFs, and the alternatives are not good enough to warrant the switch.
  - drfuchs 1y ago
    DVI isn’t suitable as you’d still have to intuit where the paragraph- and even word-breaks are; what’s body text vs. headers/footers, sidebars, captions, etc; never mind what math expression a particular jumble of characters and rules came from.
- protocolture 1y ago
  Behold a Bitmap. But for real, thats a pretty easy set of hurdles. Really the barrier is the psychological fallacy that PDF's are immutable.
  - theamk 1y ago
    Should have added "looks good on screen and on paper", "stores text compactly" and "multiple pages supported" :) And yes, that's a pretty easy set of hurdles. I wish we'd standardized on DjVu instead. Re "PDF's are immutable." - that's not a psychological fallacy, that's a primary advantage of PDFs. If I wanted mutable format, I'd take an odt (or rtf or a doc). "Output only" format allows one to use the very latest version of editor app, while having the result working even in ancient readers, something very desirable in many contexts.
    - protocolture 1y ago
      Word can edit pretty much any pdf these days, the issue is that it will often garble the attempt.
    - imtringued 1y ago
      PDFs are not really immutable. I use Okular all the time to write my "notes" (it's just text that you can place anywhere) on top of a PDF form and then print out a new completely filled out PDF. The only thing I do by hand is sign the physical paper.
      - iLemming 1y ago
        Your understanding of immutability feels skewed here. Every time you annotate the PDF, it creates a new version. Even when you overwrite the same file, the structure of the original document changes, therefore creating a new document, ultimately making it "the ship of Theseus.pdf" Sure, someone may try using the same argument, applying it to .doc and .txt documents, yet there is a general consensus saying that pdfs were designed to "resist the change". You can probably self-illustrate the point by making changes to a .txt document and then removing your changes - the md5 of the file would remain the same.
        me-vs-cat 1y ago
        Have you ever used Acrobat? Not "Acrobat Reader", but regular Acrobat, the most popular PDF editor. It's from Adobe, and it definitely does not "resist" edits.
- dqv 1y ago
  > (3) Won't have animation, fold-out text, or anything that cannot be be shown on a piece of paper > (4) won't require Javascript or access to external sites So about that... https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/library/jsapiref/toc.html https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/library/jsa...
  - lmz 1y ago
    Also: https://pdfa.org/3d-pdf-showcase/ https://pdfa.org/3d-pdf-showcase/
  - izacus 1y ago
    Did you miss the meaning of the word "require"?
  - theamk 1y ago
    that's the power of legacy. Adobe may think they can add junk to PDF like Javascript support, or lmz's "3D PDF" link below, but since PDFs viewers have a diverse ecosystem, those features won't have a great adoption. And this is actually pretty great, maybe even the best part of PDFs! Companies _know_ that publishing PDF that require 3d-graphics or Javascript means many people won't be able to see them, so they publish good, static PDFs, maintaining virtuous cycle.
- gpvos 1y ago
  Postscript fits that bill better.
- numpad0 1y ago
  (-1) be vector format that never gets pixelated (0) that reproduce everywhere on any OS perfectly (0.5) that supports (everything) any typographical engineers ever wanted past and future Bitmap formats are out from clause -1, Office file formats disqualify from clause 0, Markdown doesn't satisfy clause 0.5. Otherwise a Word .doc format covers most of clauses 1-4.
  - Timwi 1y ago
    > (0) that reproduce everywhere on any OS perfectly Can somebody explain why this isn't the case for HTML? I'm frequently in a situation where a website that mimics printed pages fails to render the same between Firefox and Chrome. I wish to understand the primary culprit here. I thought all of the CSS units are completely defined?
    - djxfade 1y ago
      Probably due to different font rendering in the OS.
    - scajanus 1y ago
      I think this is the result of 1) it being a moving target and 2) HTML and CSS being a de facto standard rather than de jure, where the (differing) implementations define at least part of the spec. You also can't really embed fonts in a HTML file, you rely on linking instead -- and those can rot. Apparently there has been some work towards it (base64 encoded), but support may vary. And you need to embed the whole font, I don't think you can do character subsets easily.
- ninalanyon 1y ago
  A subset of HTML and CSS surely does that to a large degree. Data urls solve the single file problem.
- majora2007 1y ago
  Why can't this be done with epub? Single file, all files are packed within the zip, no javascript needed but can be included. Allows for markup and forms, just like pdf.
  - currency 1y ago
    EPub is, like html, reformattable by the reader, so documents aren't fixed in the way PDFs are.
xvilka 1y ago
The solution always has been in plain sight - just make XML-based format. Nobody liked it, except OpenDocument and eventually Microsoft. Though these formats serve different purpose, new, similar one, could be created with picture-perfect features.
GuB-42 1y ago
PDF is effectively digital paper, and it works really well for this. When I made PDFs 20 years ago, I knew they will always look the same on every device, including on paper, and they did, and they still do. In addition, a document is a single file, reasonably compact, looks good on any resolution, and is generally searchable. Even if not ideal, it can also support scans of paper documents in a way that can be sent to a printer on the other side of the planet and you will get the same result as if you had used a copier. Data extraction is hard, but that's not what it is designed for, it is for people to read, like paper documents. Far from being "mad", it is remarkably stable. It has some crazy features, and it is not designed for data extraction (but doesn't actively prevent it!). But look at the alternative. Word documents? Html? Svg? One of the zillion XML-based document formats? Markdown? Is any one of these suitable for writing, say, a scientific paper (with maths, tables, graphics...) in a way that is readable by a human on a computer or in print and will still be in decades and that is easier to process by a machine than a PDF?

theamk 1y ago

When we get an alternative that can: (1) be stored in a single file (2) Allow tables, images and anything else that can be shown on a piece paper (3) Won't have animation, fold-out text, or anything that cannot be be shown on a piece of paper (4) won't require Javascript or access to external sites that means never.. We've got lucky we at least got PDF before "web designers" made (3) impossible, and marketers made (4) impossible

coderatlarge 1y ago
dvi ? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_independent_file_format https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_independent_file_form...
- theamk 1y ago
  > For a DVI file to be printed or even properly previewed, the fonts it references must be already installed. If you want alternatives, I'd choose DjVu. But it's too late now, everyone is converged on PDFs, and the alternatives are not good enough to warrant the switch.
- drfuchs 1y ago
  DVI isn’t suitable as you’d still have to intuit where the paragraph- and even word-breaks are; what’s body text vs. headers/footers, sidebars, captions, etc; never mind what math expression a particular jumble of characters and rules came from.
protocolture 1y ago
Behold a Bitmap. But for real, thats a pretty easy set of hurdles. Really the barrier is the psychological fallacy that PDF's are immutable.
- theamk 1y ago
  Should have added "looks good on screen and on paper", "stores text compactly" and "multiple pages supported" :) And yes, that's a pretty easy set of hurdles. I wish we'd standardized on DjVu instead. Re "PDF's are immutable." - that's not a psychological fallacy, that's a primary advantage of PDFs. If I wanted mutable format, I'd take an odt (or rtf or a doc). "Output only" format allows one to use the very latest version of editor app, while having the result working even in ancient readers, something very desirable in many contexts.
  - protocolture 1y ago
    Word can edit pretty much any pdf these days, the issue is that it will often garble the attempt.
  - imtringued 1y ago
    PDFs are not really immutable. I use Okular all the time to write my "notes" (it's just text that you can place anywhere) on top of a PDF form and then print out a new completely filled out PDF. The only thing I do by hand is sign the physical paper.
    - iLemming 1y ago
      Your understanding of immutability feels skewed here. Every time you annotate the PDF, it creates a new version. Even when you overwrite the same file, the structure of the original document changes, therefore creating a new document, ultimately making it "the ship of Theseus.pdf" Sure, someone may try using the same argument, applying it to .doc and .txt documents, yet there is a general consensus saying that pdfs were designed to "resist the change". You can probably self-illustrate the point by making changes to a .txt document and then removing your changes - the md5 of the file would remain the same.
      - me-vs-cat 1y ago
        Have you ever used Acrobat? Not "Acrobat Reader", but regular Acrobat, the most popular PDF editor. It's from Adobe, and it definitely does not "resist" edits.
dqv 1y ago
> (3) Won't have animation, fold-out text, or anything that cannot be be shown on a piece of paper > (4) won't require Javascript or access to external sites So about that... https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/library/jsapiref/toc.html https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/library/jsa...
- lmz 1y ago
  Also: https://pdfa.org/3d-pdf-showcase/ https://pdfa.org/3d-pdf-showcase/
- izacus 1y ago
  Did you miss the meaning of the word "require"?
- theamk 1y ago
  that's the power of legacy. Adobe may think they can add junk to PDF like Javascript support, or lmz's "3D PDF" link below, but since PDFs viewers have a diverse ecosystem, those features won't have a great adoption. And this is actually pretty great, maybe even the best part of PDFs! Companies _know_ that publishing PDF that require 3d-graphics or Javascript means many people won't be able to see them, so they publish good, static PDFs, maintaining virtuous cycle.
gpvos 1y ago
Postscript fits that bill better.
numpad0 1y ago
(-1) be vector format that never gets pixelated (0) that reproduce everywhere on any OS perfectly (0.5) that supports (everything) any typographical engineers ever wanted past and future Bitmap formats are out from clause -1, Office file formats disqualify from clause 0, Markdown doesn't satisfy clause 0.5. Otherwise a Word .doc format covers most of clauses 1-4.
- Timwi 1y ago
  > (0) that reproduce everywhere on any OS perfectly Can somebody explain why this isn't the case for HTML? I'm frequently in a situation where a website that mimics printed pages fails to render the same between Firefox and Chrome. I wish to understand the primary culprit here. I thought all of the CSS units are completely defined?
  - djxfade 1y ago
    Probably due to different font rendering in the OS.
  - scajanus 1y ago
    I think this is the result of 1) it being a moving target and 2) HTML and CSS being a de facto standard rather than de jure, where the (differing) implementations define at least part of the spec. You also can't really embed fonts in a HTML file, you rely on linking instead -- and those can rot. Apparently there has been some work towards it (base64 encoded), but support may vary. And you need to embed the whole font, I don't think you can do character subsets easily.
ninalanyon 1y ago
A subset of HTML and CSS surely does that to a large degree. Data urls solve the single file problem.
majora2007 1y ago
Why can't this be done with epub? Single file, all files are packed within the zip, no javascript needed but can be included. Allows for markup and forms, just like pdf.
- currency 1y ago
  EPub is, like html, reformattable by the reader, so documents aren't fixed in the way PDFs are.

xvilka 1y ago

The solution always has been in plain sight - just make XML-based format. Nobody liked it, except OpenDocument and eventually Microsoft. Though these formats serve different purpose, new, similar one, could be created with picture-perfect features.

GuB-42 1y ago

PDF is effectively digital paper, and it works really well for this. When I made PDFs 20 years ago, I knew they will always look the same on every device, including on paper, and they did, and they still do. In addition, a document is a single file, reasonably compact, looks good on any resolution, and is generally searchable. Even if not ideal, it can also support scans of paper documents in a way that can be sent to a printer on the other side of the planet and you will get the same result as if you had used a copier. Data extraction is hard, but that's not what it is designed for, it is for people to read, like paper documents. Far from being "mad", it is remarkably stable. It has some crazy features, and it is not designed for data extraction (but doesn't actively prevent it!). But look at the alternative. Word documents? Html? Svg? One of the zillion XML-based document formats? Markdown? Is any one of these suitable for writing, say, a scientific paper (with maths, tables, graphics...) in a way that is readable by a human on a computer or in print and will still be in decades and that is easier to process by a machine than a PDF?