On 03/10/2011 08:15 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
"Jonathan M Davis"<jmdavisp...@gmx.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.2411.1299739219.4748.digitalmar...@puremagic.com...
On Wednesday 09 March 2011 22:18:53 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
"Jonathan M Davis"<jmdavisp...@gmx.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.2409.1299728378.4748.digitalmar...@puremagic.com...
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.
Agreed. pdf (or maybe rather the more powerful ps) should be an end-of-chain
format just before printing. Delivering pdf docs for anyhting else makes no
sense. pdf is a printing format (a poor one, according to typo professional,
please ask); nothing else.
Also, nowadays, it's no more necessary to use ps or pdf to get (correct)
printing. Nearly anything can be composed and printed as is. An exception may
be complex math formulas (in latex indeed). Even then, one can precompose them
into plain graphics.
Denis
--
_________________
vita es estrany
spir.wikidot.com
