Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 123 LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 21

Thread: What do you think about PDFs?

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Melbourne, Australia
    Beans
    138
    Distro
    Kubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail

    Re: What do you think about PDFs?

    Love 'em. Cross platform, usually easier to print than an office document. My usual output for LaTeX documents. Etcetera.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ellipsis View Post
    But the content that is released as a PDF online is just so poorly suited for it. I have seen school newspapers release their online edition as a PDF document, news releases, government budgets, single IMAGES!... and each of these places does have a website which can serve this content directly. Instead they use the website as a platform to download the darn PDF.
    Jakob Neilsen would be spinning in his grave! You know, if he were dead and all... here's what he wrote about them nearly a decade ago:

    http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030714.html

    Shame that some people are still misusing them.

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Connecticut, USA
    Beans
    1,545
    Distro
    Ubuntu

    Re: What do you think about PDFs?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lightstar View Post
    I hate pdf because of work, we're always suck filling huge forms that are CAN'T BE SAVED.
    You can, but that requires, I think, Acrobat Pro (and not Reader). At work just about everybody has Acrobat Pro so we haven't had to worry about it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ellipsis View Post
    I have recently been getting frustrated with just how many things are released as PDFs. I am okay with the format itself.But the content that is released as a PDF online is just so poorly suited for it. I have seen school newspapers release their online edition as a PDF document, news releases, government budgets, single IMAGES!... and each of these places does have a website which can serve this content directly. Instead they use the website as a platform to download the darn PDF.

    Beyond the obvious portability of PDF is there any redeeming quality to it?
    For design and layout, the advantage of a PDF is that once it is set it will look the same on anybody's system regardless of screen size, resolution, program or operating system. This is especially helpful when distributing to parties where you have no idea what they are running it on.

    Plus for some items by storing everything as images it means those people with PDF editors cannot change anything. I have a Role-Playing Game rulebook I wish was not an image so I could select text and copy it elsewhere. This may be exactly WHY they did it this way. And the resolution is too low to try running OCR software on it too (I've tried).

    Otherwise the next most popular format I find people asking for things in is Word or Excel. So are you going to support PDFs where all platforms have some sort of reader, or Office where Microsoft makes money off each user?
    Friends don't let friends wear a red shirt on landing-party duty.
    DACS | Connecticut LoCo Team | My Blog
    Ubuntu User# : 17583, Linux User# : 477531

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Tennessee
    Beans
    3,421

    Re: What do you think about PDFs?

    Any technology can be misused. For what they're intended to accomplish, PDFs are pretty great.

    PDF is an open, ISO standard. You do not need Acrobat Pro to create a PDF, unless perhaps there's some proprietary extension to the standard you want to use.

    If I wanted to email someone a rich-text document with graphics, what better way to do it?

    If I wanted to prepare a form letter, legal document, or publication to be printed by someone else, what better way to ensure it would render correctly on their end?

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Beans
    996
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: What do you think about PDFs?

    PDFs are good at what they do. To move documents from a printed medium to digital medium and vice versa. They are unmatched as a form to share documents that you would normally print but the other person just wants to read them first.Since PDFs generated by Linux apps can be opened just the same anywhere keeping the layout and so. I would have not survived academically without them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lightstar View Post
    I hate pdf because of work, we're always suck filling huge forms that are CAN'T BE SAVED. Man, it's such a hassle re-filling it everytime! It kills me! D:

    I also love pdf because of its cross-platformity. I save my resume in .pdf so noone can edit it (though I doubt anyone would) and a few other things like that.
    Any document format would have been terrible in that case. What your work needs is an information system, not keeping forms in document format.
    Last edited by vexorian; September 26th, 2012 at 03:36 PM.
    Xye incredibly difficult puzzle game with minimal graphics. Also at playdeb
    Got a blog: Will Stay Free

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Turkey
    Beans
    1,574

    Re: What do you think about PDFs?

    I believe .pdf's should die and .epub's and .mobi's take over. These formats can be handled far better by e-readers and e-readers are "the future".

  6. #16
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    Kansas City, KS
    Beans
    1,319
    Distro
    Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

    Re: What do you think about PDFs?

    I love .pdf. The absolute cross-platform support without formatting glitches and text reflow mean that I can actually use LO and print the resulting document on a Windows machine, that I can flip through the same documents on my tablet in the same form, and so on, and I'll often convert document files to .pdf just for easier reading; it's a bit nuts to open a word processor when I'm not processing anything.

    And on my desktop, it means I can have multiple documents up in tabs, which is often a necessity. I actually really wish Android had a tabbed .pdf viewer.

  7. #17
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Beans
    591
    Distro
    Kubuntu Development Release

    Re: What do you think about PDFs?

    I actually like pdf's as they can be viewed on different devices and without an Internet connection for many things. It is ideal for static information like documents that would otherwise be printed.

    Also Okular on KDE is very nice for viewing and annotating PDF's.

    I also distribute my content in PDF format as a replacement for odt/doc/docx as not everyone can read these formats on their devices and even if they can there is a formatting mess up.

  8. #18
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Austin, Texas, USA
    Beans
    435

    Re: What do you think about PDFs?

    Quote Originally Posted by Porcini M. View Post
    That has made me wonder if they'll ever do away with the "page" paradigm in document editors like MS Word or LibreOffice. Since the screen scrolls smoothly, we don't need to partition documents into discreet pages. The only exception is when the document is printed, but that is becoming more the exception rather than the rule.
    In Libre Office you can choose to view a document in "Page Layout" or "Web Layout". MS Office and other wordprocessors offer analogous options.

  9. #19
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Beans
    Hidden!

    Re: What do you think about PDFs?

    Quote Originally Posted by rewyllys View Post
    In Libre Office you can choose to view a document in "Page Layout" or "Web Layout". MS Office and other wordprocessors offer analogous options.
    Ah, thanks I didn't know that.

  10. #20
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Beans
    331
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Wink Re: What do you think about PDFs?

    Quote Originally Posted by HermanAB View Post
    You can use Xournal to scribble all over a PDF and then either save the markup as a separate file, or export it to a new PDF. Xournal together with PDFShuffler are indispensable in an office.
    Thanks for the tips!
    Linux-libre ask for it
    Coreboot Free software to replace proprietary BIOS
    Trisquel a fully free GNU/Linux-libre distribution
    Open Source does not mean Free My Spec Earthlings

Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 123 LastLast

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •