"Jonathan M Davis" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]... > On Wednesday 09 March 2011 22:18:53 Nick Sabalausky wrote: >> "Jonathan M Davis" <[email protected]> wrote in message >> news:[email protected]... >> >> > On Wednesday 09 March 2011 13:30:27 Nick Sabalausky wrote: >> >> But why is it that academic authors have a chronic inability to >> >> release >> >> any >> >> form of text without first cramming it into a goddamn PDF of all >> >> things? >> >> This is one example of why I despise Adobe's predominance: PDF is >> >> fucking useless for anything but printing, and no one seems to know >> >> it. >> >> Isn't it about time the ivory tower learned about Mosaic? The web is >> >> more than a PDF-distribution tool...Really! It is! Welcome to the >> >> mid-90's. Sheesh. >> > >> > And what format would you _want_ it in? PDF is _way_ better than having >> > a >> > file >> > for any particular word processor. What else would you pick? HTML? >> > Yuck. >> > How >> > would _that_ be any better than a PDF? These are _papers_ after all, >> > not >> > some >> > web article. They're either written up in a word processor or with >> > latex. >> > Distributing them as PDFs makes perfect sense. >> >> They're text. With minor formatting. That alone makes html better. Html >> is >> lousy for a lot of things, but formatted text is the one thing it's >> always >> been perfectly good at. And frankly I think I'd *rather* go with pretty >> much any word processing format if the only other option was pdf. > > I'm afraid that I don't understand at all. The only time that I would > consider > html better than a pdf is if the pdf isn't searchable (and most papers > _are_ > searchable). And I _definitely_ don't like dealing with whatever word > processor > format someone happens to be using. PDF is nice and universal. I don't > have to > worry about whether I have the appropriate fonts or if I even have a > program > which can read their word processor format of choice. I don't really have > any > gripes with PDF at all. >
PDF: *Complete* inability to adapt appropriately to the viewing device, *completely* useless page breaks and associated top/bottom page margins in places that have absolutely *no* use for them, no flowing layout, frequent horizontal scrolling, poor (if any) linking, inability for the reader to choose the fonts/etc that *they* find readable. Oh, and ever tried reading one of those pdf's that use a multi-column layout? All of this together makes PDF the #1 worst document format for viewing on a PC. All for what? Increased accuracy the *few* times it ever gets printed? Outside of print-shops, pdf needs to die a horrible death.
