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Before PDF: John Warnock's 'Camelot'
Karl De Abrew writes: "In the Spring of 1991 Dr. John Warnock wrote a paper he
dubbed "Camelot" in which the Adobe Systems Co-founder and
CEO laid out the foundation for what has become Acrobat/PDF.
With the author's permission, Planet PDF is pleased to publish
the full-text of that historic document." Of course, now it's 2002, and the dream of universal display / printing remains only partly realized; PDFs really have helped to narrow the gap between dream and reality, though.
i am arthur! king of the brittons! will you join me at my court at came--uh--adobe?
first post queers
that the paper will be made available in Portable Document Format?
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
Even as a Windows user, I'll be the first to admit that even a standard word processor like Word leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to creating a document that'll display correctly everywhere (even across different versions of Word). Adobe has done some excellent work with the PDF format, it's just a shame that it's another company-controlled format, though at least much better than the Word .doc!
Is Linux for you and your business? Probably not.
My only beef with pdf is that on computers that have a 32 mb of ram and a 233 mhz cpu, it is very glitchy and you can not scroll threw... But then again on my g4 733, it looks pretty good and some companys have made some pretty nice pdf's, like thoes sydney oylimpic ones were alright...
"You win again Gravity!" -Futurama (Zapp)
Especially when you consider that OSX now has a graphics engine based on PDF, which begins to finally close the gap between screen and paper ...
Gotta love those dreamy nerds.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
John and I haven't kept in touch in recent years but I wish him the very best of luck with Adobe. He's a very talented man and he deserves success.
df
Another function of the IPS binder will be to include reconstituted fonts into the IPS file. The idea here is to include just the characters of a font that are actually used in the document. A result of including the necessary characters from the fonts used is that an IPS file will be completely self contained. In other words, when I send a file around the country, I don't have to worry about whether the receiving location has all the fonts required by the document. The current situation is that complex font substitution schemes are used to deal with locations not having the appropriate fonts.
Later on Adobe did better than this, with the Multiple Master Font idea --- even if a font or a subset of the font is not embedded (this can seriously bloat file sizes as the font encodings are a lot of overhead for a small document), Acrobat reader (or some other display device) can render the font pretty well because it knows how to "fake" the correct appearance based on similarities to combinations of master fonts. It's a very clever approach.
"Never bullshit a bullshitter" All That Jazz
Everyone knows about OSX and DPDF. When will Windows abandon the bitmapped display it has used since, well, forever? Is MS working on a system similar to DPDF? Or do they not even really regard the technology as worthwhile? It seems odd to me, since MS's cash cow is Word and Excel, that they are essentially using the same graphics engine they have always used, albeit much faster and with more features. (opponents of MS will say that this applies to all their technologies). Is it merely that they (MS) have not built their own, and are hesitant to license PDF from Adobe? Or are there strong technical reasons (besides, I guess, breaking the old software).
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
I was reading the latest Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS), which should be followed by *NIX developers, and I noticed that it states there should exist a /usr/homosexual/ directory on all standard filesystems. Does anyone know what the purpose of this is?
..and it would seem to be a solid alternative to the office/printer problem on Linux. Color printing on Linux remains a problem for some printer models (although this is improving). Any office suite is limited in use without the ability to print *correctly* from Linux. The need for the Windows printer driver is very inconvenient.
However, once one learns LyX, it would seem, one can author documents at least (with color graphics, no less) on Linux in a format that can be exported to either PDF or HTML, and viewed or printed on any platform with a PDF viewer, including eBooks, Linux, Mac and Windows. This makes things far more convenient.
... In Camelot!
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
why does ps2pdf still suck?
Note that the paper indicates they were originally planning on selling the viewers. I'll bet there is an internal political story there...
I assume they eventually got paid for including it in the printer drivers in Mac OS and Windows, but initially, they were just giving it away. In fact, they also gave away the rendering tools to just about everybody who owned another Adobe product. Of course the net result was that it quickly became indispensable.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
I am convinced that you would make a great ashna for me.
Please mail me at once if you're willing.
Yours truly, Jon
If you are reading this post, and you have not read the document yet, read the document it is a must read; not only is it informative, but it is interesting.
Previously this was available only though special software which had to be purchased from Adobe. Now the operating system emables me to create documents with the assurance that it will be rendered on anyone's screen as it would have been rendered by my printer.
Beyond that, I know anyone can print their own hard copy of my document without any cross-platform problems. That's something MS Word cannot boast.
The main problem I see is that its designed to reproduce print-like quality, which is great for when you need a hard copy, but the trend to turn PDF into a lazy man's HTML is definately for the worse.
First, the filesize is ridiculous.
The interface needs a lot of work, unless I have a scrolling mouse I won't even bother reading one. The little hand widget must go. Also, I don't want to have to resize my screen to be able to read half the poorly produced PDFs out there. No use in jumping to the next page when I can only display 2/3 of the current one. So back to the little hand.
They're non-editable for the most part once you make them.
They are in a closed format and controlled by a litigious company unafraid to use the DMCA for their own questionable ends.
The plug-ins are notoriously buggy.
Its great for sending something straight to the laser printer, but as an on-line advance it really just stinks.
It has all the disadvantages of online and printed documentation rolled into one.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
John Warnock said there were two paths, one is to use Display Postscript, and the other is to use Interchange Postscript.
It sounds like they went with IPS, but how divergent from Postscrip is PDF (or Acrobat Exchange format)? Also, does anyone know if anyone other than Apple uses Display Postscript?
I just woke up and my ass hurts. I mean the cheeks are really hurting. I didn't exercise yesterday and I simply cannot understand why my ass hurts.
Next I'm going to check what it looks like in the mirror. If there are any bruises I'll get really worried.
it is important to structure Camelot components so that they can be sold in ways that are useful to the corporations (emphasis mine)
OLD...
. If someone produced a CD-ROM with "maps of the world" on it, then one can imagine selling a retail package with one viewer and the CD-ROM. (emphasis mine)
STORY....
. In any event corporations should be interested in site-licensing arrangements
...they start with a genuinely innovative idea (using the rebinding features of the PostScript language to develop documents that can do not require the complete PS parser to be read,thus vastly improving portability, as a much smaller reader application compatible with any IPS can then be distributed), and all they can think about is the ALMIGHTY DOLLAR.
What about truth? What about freedom?! What about human rights, or helping developing countries? ANY hint of idealism is shunted aside. The glorious implications of "Camelot" have been abandoned along with the name, and Adobe is today just another software behemoth slugging it out with the Micro$oft gorilla. Sometimes it's too easy to be cynical.
Okay, how do I page number a document starting on page 3 and labeling it page 1 (without having any page numbers whatsoever on page 1 and 2)? So page 3 would be called page 1, page 4 would be called page 2 and so on. I cannot do this manually because the document is very long. Oh, this is in Microsoft Word 2000.
All help will be greatly appreciated because this is for a worthy cause.
Thank you, and God bless.
the dream of universal display / printing remains only partly realized; PDFs really have helped to narrow the gap between dream and reality
Fuck you.
IT NEVER HELPED to make MY WINDOWS GDI PRINTER fuction above 1% in LINUX.
Camelot is a silly place...
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
If only Distiller wouldn't crash Win2k oh so often...
And even when it doesn't bluescreen in my experience it's better to reboot it after generation of a bunch of PDFs just to be sure that the mess in kernel structures Distiller driver (usually) causes does not stay there.
... or how printing is highly overrated and I'd rather use hyperlinks than (see page 41). I don't quite see how PDF is better than a regular markup language, a manual or technical paper isn't a work of art. Why does it need to look exactly the same. I'm looking for information, not a breathtaking setup of paragraphs. Why not do it in html?
And will someone please tell me what's up with those "This page intentionally left blank". Not only is it contradictive, but a waste of paper/time/etc.
Alright I was reading a couple stories and I just decided to share this little
story about the time I hit it with a Jew girl using deception and cunning. LOL.
I mean it's not real hard to act like another person or make others believe you
are.
When I was a senior in high school last year not long before my 18th birthday I
was just cruising through school. After we changed classes at the end of second
semester I got into a class with this really hot girl named Cindy who I was
sitting by in the seating chart, well I knew from the first day I was gonna try
and hit it with this girl, but I didn't think it would be nearly as complicated
as it turned out. One day in class we had to pair up and do this project (it was
history class) and it was on the Cold War, well into the convo we started
talking about those Jew Rosenberg's selling the atom bomb and I said "well what
the hell do you expect for those fucking kikes?" and she looked at me and said
"what did you just say?" and I repeated myself and she said, "You ignorant
asshole I'm Jewish," and I looked at her and said, "Well sux to be you" and
started laughing. Well we didn't talk the rest of the project, I just let her do
the work then I guess to be a dick I acted like I was scratching my arm and
pulled up the sleeve to show my Neo-Nazi tattoo to her (I am a proud and loyal
NNLR member) and she said, "I can't believe I am sitting next to a Nazi," and I
was like, "I am unfortunately not a Nazi, I missed the good old days," and
started laughing and man was she pissed.
To go on, well we went through the next few weeks barely saying anything to each
other and me and A.J. (a fellow NNLR in my class) would sometimes say some shit
to her. Well it pissed her off enough to try and get her boyfriend after me so
he came up to my table and asked me about some shit and I ended fucking him up
in the lunch room, I mean it was a weak fight with some Jew-loving soccer player
against me a pure Aryan linebacker. LOL. I ended up getting 10 days out for
drawing blood and I just cruised through that easy as hell.
When I came back I found out that sometime when I was gone she had broken up
with her boyfriend. I am not sure why, but it figures he gets his ass beat for
her and she dumps him later for something. Typical Jew. In class, she eyes me
when I sat down and didn't say anything to me, I started razzing her and was
like, "how's you boyfriend doing?" and she's like, "I am not going out with him
anymore but I am sure he's doing fine," and I said, "broke up with him after he
gets his ass beaten for you, that some kind of Hebrew thing?" and she said, "Oh
shut up you asshole, I am so tired of hearing you talk about that," and I razzed
her a little longer. Anyways, later in the month we had a project we had to do
out of class, and it had to be with my desk partner she was mad, but she's a
crazy A student and she asked me, "Well do you want to do the assignment at my
house or yours?" and I said, "Well I am not allowed to have Jews at my house"
and me and AJ started laughing, I was like, "Why don't you just do it?" and she
said, "'cause you're not getting an A for my work," so we ended up going to her
house well it's a typical Hebe home, with the 8 candle stuff and I knocked on
the door and her mom answered, "Hi, are you Luke?" and I was like, "In the
flesh," she said, "Come on in Cindy is in her room," and I looked around and saw
all this Jew stuff and I sort of scoffed, anyway I went to her room and she's
like, "Alright lets get started," and I was just looking around, "I don't think
I'll be able to concentrate in this Yid hol,e" and she's like, "Well then I'll
tell Mr. Deen that you didn't do anything," so I had to sit there and figure out
the project with her.
I wasn't really doing anything but nodding when she said something. While I was
sitting there I was scoping her and thinking what it would be like to get a
piece of Jew ass, I was thinking it the whole time I mean is there really
anything wrong with using one for sex? I mean not dating just fucking? and I
thought about that the whole time.
The night after I went home I was looking at my ceiling and thinking the whole
night on how to fuck Cindy, I was going over some ways and though well maybe
I'll be like in the movies and act like I changed and then after I fuck her,
just tell the bitch about it and break her little kick heart. LOL. I talked it
over with Tom, AJ, and Rob, they all wondered why I wanted to fuck the Jew, but
they knew she was hot and stuff. I decided to act like I didn't want to be a
NNLR anymore and have like AJ and them act like I changed in front of her. Not
to go into much detail, but it was a good plan to tap that ass.
At school the next day I went over to her and was like, "How you doing?" She
seemed a little surprised, "I'm alright," and then AJ walked by and we sorta
gave each other this fake little mean look that we made sure she noticed. She
was like, "Are you and AJ mad about something?" and I was like, "I don't know
he's a dick," she goes, "I thought you guys were good friends?" and I'm like,
"We were but the NNLR are starting to piss me off," and she's like "Is that so?"
and I'm like, "Yeah I am thinking about getting out," and she's like, "That's
good, maybe then you'll stop being such a prick." I wanted to say something but
I restrained and continued the charade.
It lasted much longer than that to her, and I'm not going to go into depth but
in the next few weeks I made it look like I had gotten out of the NNLR's and to
her I wasn't hanging out with them anymore well we had to do another project and
I was like, "Let's do it at my house" and she's like, "I thought you weren't
allowed to have Jewish people there?" I sorta gave a sad face and was like "I'm
not like that anymore," which she thought was true. That night I had to
rearrange my room take down all my party and NNLR emblems and stuff and I made a
great effort to make it look like a typical room. When she came over she was
like "Wow your house is nice," which it is since both my parents are business
workaholics and I'm like "Thanks, it's alright." Well we got into the project
and after it was done we started watching TV on the couch. We got into a deep
convo about the NNLR and I had to say some bad things that it was hard to say
and eventually when she was leaving I talked her into a date with me for
Saturday, I was gonna kiss her but I didn't really feel like pushing it since I
was hoping to get in those little kike panties this weekend anyway.
As the week went on we talked in class and stuff until she probably thought I
was a very tolerant ex-bigot that was pushed into joining the NNLR because of
bad parenting and a need for acceptance. LOL. Not bad huh?
As Saturday came along we went on our date and went to a real expensive place
and ate then we went to a movie, and we held hands and walked around the mall, I
could tell their was no way I was going to get in her pants on the first date
for some reason and I was a little pissed, but I figured it will come
eventually, the date ended that night after making plans for another and we went
into a french kiss in front of her house. She went inside and I wiped off my
mouth, damn I hated kissing the Jew, I just wanted to fuck her. LOL.
We had two more dates before anything real sexual happened and that was when we
were in my car outside her house after going to another expensive restaurant
(damn Jews) and she gave me a decent blowjob in the car. I came all in her mouth
and she swallowed every drop like a good Jew, we made plans for another date the
next weekend and I had the feeling I was finally going to fuck my Jew.
I picked her up and we went to see a movie, then after we went to eat and talk
and junk like that you gotta go through to get laid, I talked her into coming to
my house and I knew I was going to fuck her, well we got into it on the couch
and she gave me another decent blow job and again swallowed like a good Jew.
Then I got her into the bed by like fake tackling her after she stood up we
started laughing and she's like "stop it" and I undid the buttons on her shirt
and we started kissing. So much for stopping it, I got her bra off and sucked on
her tits, then got her jeans off and was about to pull off her panties and she's
like, "Stop it Luke!" and I stopped and looked up all sad faced like, "Why
what's wrong?" and she said, "I never had sex before."
I was rock hard, by the end of the sentence I had the opportunity to pop a Jew
girls cherry I started acting all nice like "Well I don't care if you're a
virgin you'll like it I promise," and she sat up and I kissed her and started
talking about never doing it and eventually I got her to lay down through some
good talking I might add and I took off her panties and finally got a glimpse of
her bush which was pretty fine I might add, I started thinking about a condom,
but then I was like are you stupid? Don't wear one, I mean she's probably not
even thinking about that, and pulled off my underwear and prepared to put it in,
then she asked about a condom and I said don't worry I'm sterile, LOL. I don't
know why she believed me but she didn't press the issue.
She looked a little scared but I wasn't really going to hurt her anyway in that
fashion 'cause I just wanted to fuck the kike bitch. I don't have a monster cock
like it seems everyone else in these stories have but I am very proud of my 7
incher and I led it to her very very tight pussy. I mean I had fucked tight
girls before but never a virgin, and I put it into her and she started like
sorta startled moaning and when I reached the hymen her face was all like all
closed up so I just rammed it in and busted the hymen, she screamed pretty loud,
but then I start inching it in and she was moaning sort of, well I continued the
pace figuring I'd fuck her again later and just went in and out till I came in
her. After I was done I looked at her and she was like all sweaty even worse
than me, and I don't know how much she enjoyed it, but she put her arm on me, I
fucked her again like 40 minutes later and this time I felt her orgasm, she
called her mom and said she was staying at a friend's, and then she fell asleep.
I laid on the bed thinking about how to show her that not only had I just used
her Jew body, but I was still a very loyal NNLR, so while she was sleeping I put
my room (which is my entire basement) like it was before that night she came for
the project, and I had my swastika flag over the bed and the Fuhrer and my SS
posters and stuff back up, and I even put my swastika screen saver on, then I
laid down next to her and dozed off.
I woke up the next morning before her when it was light and decided on another
thing to do so I left a note on the lampshade next to her all it said was
"Thanks for the easy fuck last night, I did enjoy it, when you wake up please
leave my room I don't want your Jewish bitch ass here longer than that. Claiming
NNLR 4 Life" LOL.
I sat in the living room and a little later I saw her walking on the side of our
house where the basement is onto the sidewalk to walk home and she was like
crying hard I mean like her face was so red. LOL. I loved it and the fact that
she lives a 10 minute drive from me and she had to walk all red and stuff home.
When I went to school on Monday I found out that she had asked Mr. Deen for a
new seat and talked him into it and I got to sit my AJ which was cool as hell. I
looked at her but she just sat there and didn't look back. I heard later from
friends she had to go through therapy and all this stuff and her Dad like almost
came after me with a gun when she got home that day, and I wish he would have
I'd have dropped his ass with my
Ask Dmitry Skylarov what happened when he tried to "reverse-engineer" the encryption on that "open" standard (if it's open, why would he need to reverse engineer it in the first place?)
PDF, open YEAH RIGHT!
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Over the past few months, the GNU/Linux community has slowly adopted a way of dealing with security issues which closely resembles the approach suggested by Microsoft last year: more-or-less systematic hiding of security problems from end users, at least for some time.
Some Debian maintainers seem to participate in this process, and hold back security fixes, waiting for events to happen which are external and not related to the Debian project (for example, other distributors being ready to publish fixes).
I'm not sure if this approach is desirable, or has the intended effect. However, I do think that it is conflicting with the third item of the Social Contract: The promise, "We Won't Hide Problems", is not held. (The following technical explanation is honored, though, such problem reports never enter the Bug Tracking System before release.)
However, I do think that the Social Contract needs to reflect this problem. After all, the claim, "We Won't Hide Problems", gives the user a false sense of security and openness.
I know most readers here (myself included) are from IT industry, let me also introduce some effects of PDF on prepress industry. (Let's look at things from another perspective)
In the old days, there was a lot of press approval and proofs being sent via the ad. agency to the end user for approval. With PDF, even the end user can fire up PDF reader on their own computer and view the electronic proofs, it is not color accurate (looking at the screen), but for most part (especially small cheap run), it works well.
The same PDF sometimes also get on the RIP (Rasterized Image Processor) for output, this assures same results from the electonic proofs. (accuracy is very important in this industry)
Major problem now is sometimes a prepress shop get one job done and sent to other for output to film or CTP (to plate), the PDF files does not have fonts embeded (PDF have this "feature"), then, it will become a hunt for the right fonts.
Prepress shops have mixed feelings for PDF, most that I talked to see it as a constructive technology.
>First, the filesize is ridiculous.
.DOC, you'd see more of a slant towards editing them.
Yes, but personally, I see it as a trend; Moore's Law, HD technology, and better broadband will make this trivial.
>The interface needs a lot of work
Eh, its just an implementation detail, isn't it?
>They're non-editable for the most part once you make them.
Only because Adobe wants to charge a lot for Acrobat. Were PDF as common as
>They are in a closed format
Isn't the actual format open? For instance, xPDF isn't a hack, it uses the open specs, right?
>controlled by a litigious company unafraid to use the DMCA for their own questionable ends.
Yeah, no argument there.
>The plug-ins are notoriously buggy.
Another implementation detail. Fix the plugins. I am not aware of something specific to PDF that causes that.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
From gnu.org (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.ht ml)
"However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the "freedom to choose any license you want for software you write". We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom. "
So, RMS should be the universal super-police that dictates what everyone else should do like how they sell/use/whatever with their OWN DAMN SOFTWARE?
I think one of the major resistance that PDF have today is support from major Word Processor. MS Office and most major suite does not support saving as PDF "yet".
By the way, the most easiest way to covert MS Word doc to PDF without Acrobat would be Adobe's website, they offer 5 free online file conversion (supporting many source formats). Might be useful for some of you.
Watchew talkin' 'bout Willis?
you sniffin' paint cans agaiine?
... but i feel for publishing purposes, i have yet to see anything with the ease of use of Acrobat. Espcially in publishing, where you have to mail upteen versions of magazine pages etc to clients who arn't technically oriented but whose go ahead for a run is needed.
.PUB or Pagemaker and PDF?
Besides, even with pros, acrobat gives WYSIWYG, embeded fonts, compression for text and images and so on.... i think the size overhead for all this is worth every bit it takes up...
And even if you don't agree, which is more moronic, sending in MS Publisher
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
IMPORTANT: Please read the whole post
I'm sure many of you are aware of this thread already.
If you are interested in helping against the moderators who have been "editing" the thread, please read this.
Please do not moderate this post down. It is good for the long term, but if you still feel like being someone who denies the horrible truth, give me your best shot. You will help hold all of Slashdot users back in the long term.
For more info, read this piece from an apparently superior news site.
This is a score 4 post on a technical forum and he doesn't know the difference between PDF and Acrobat.
I'm surprised no-one (that I'm aware of) has proposed a 'bundled' portable HTML file format that would be non-proprietry, vendor neutral, and immune to problems like the Skylarov case.
/PAGE > sections, as well as < MEDIA > < /MEDIA> wrappers around text-encoded graphics file. Fonts could possibly also be shipped within the document.
All it would take (IMHO) is an extended HTML document which contained each individual HTML page in < PAGE > <
All the browser would have to be extended to do would be split up the pages, and decode the image information. Or, a simple parser could chop it into its component pages and images. Voila, a single-file multi-part document viewable by any browser.
Why is this better than a zipped set of HTML pages? For one it misses the unzipping and saving stage, making it as immediate as PDF. Secondly, the PHTML generator would do link checking and remunging ensuring local links within the document was completely self contained.
Any thoughts?
free experimental electronic music netlabel at www.viablehybrid.com
There is actually a free DPS library for X. It's made by Aladdin, the people who brought you Ghostscript, and the package itself is called Display Ghostscript.
It's actually not complete, and I don't know what's going on with it currently. I had seriously toyed with the idea of writing a window manager based off the library, a la' OSX, but from what I gathered the lib wasn't quite in a useable state. You can get it on debian via "apt-get install libdps" and there are dev packages too.
I would seriously love to see someone (particularly the Windowmaker & GNUStep team, as it fits them best) create my project of the DPS window manager and Widget set. I don't know how useful it would be, but I think it would definitely compel people to move forward. The URL for DPS programming info is here, if anyone is interested.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Wow... you are so full of shit I can smell you from here.
I dunno - the complete 423 page manual for Macromedia's Fireworks (with tons of embedded graphics) is about 6.5 megs and the print quality is light years ahead of the same document reproduced in HTML. That doesn't seem outrageous to me.
They're non-editable for the most part once you make them.
I think you're truly asking for magic software that can take input from any existing application, make it universally readable while retaining the formatting and also allow you to make changes to the complex formatting within the document.
PDF is revolutionary because it enables organizations to easily take documents intended for print and quickly/cheaply make them freely available electronically for a multitude of users. Think of all of the forms, manuals, etc. that are now available because they could just run it through Acrobat.
P.S.:And this has a score of 4? :-(
I'm no Adobe fan, but I've been working on PDF format for a few years and I found it great.
o cs/PDFRef.pdf
First, the filesize is ridiculous.
If you're comparing to plain text, yes. Otherwise, PDF have a built-in format that allows the producer to compress the PDF's streams (ie text and images) with a LZW algorithm.
They are in a closed format
These are java libraries for creating and editing PDFs :
pj[Open Source, GPL]
Big Faceless[Commercial w/ Evaluation]
retepPDF[Open Source, LGPL]
Java Pdf Library[Open Source, LGPL]
PDFGo[commercial]
rugPDF0.20[Open Source, LGPL]
By the way the closed format has an open specification : http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/acrosdk/d
This is excellent literature and a sound contribution to the Slashdot forum. Keep up the good work.
Hey, why the fuck is this moderated as 'Troll'? Have people forgotten the Sklyarov so quickly?
Are Adobe employees now moderators on Slashdot?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Ummmmm, I'm not quite sure how to phrase this;
is there a non-pdf version available?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
That was not PDF, that was their 'eBook' format. Very different indeed.
/. (although not often enough)
Ignorance is often modded down on
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
You're right in the fact that it is ridiculous, but for the wrong reasons....
With HTML, the page contures and changes to match your environment. Width, Height, Font, Color, etc.
If a web page made up of PDFs is designed on a 1024x768 screen, anyone with a 640x480 screen is really screwed. Imagine Lynx trying to read PDFs!
PDFs are great for documents that WILL be printed on a standard and consisten sized media (letter-sized paper) but it's serious drawbacks are that it doesn't scale, resize, change fonts etc. Try printing an A4 PDF on letter-sized paper, or vice versa.
In fact, I've seen PDFs made quite badly. The problem is, the creator holds all the cards, and the user is screwed. With some PDFs, the designers use damn tiny fonts, and huge margins, making the printout look like suck.com. With HTML, we can override the font settings, we set the margins, and in general, the user simply controls exactly how they want it.
That's the difference. PDFs put the creator in too-much control, and HTML puts the end user's in total control.
Screw PDF, I like HTML.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
In a way, PDF is one of the most idiotic formats for document interchange ever designed. Who exactly thought it would be a good idea to hardcode the paper size?
At a minimum this means that all internationally distributed PDFs have to come in two variants, A4 and Letter. And you need a screen wide enough to view a whole line of text - no possibility of reformatting into narrower columns for palmtops etc.
There are plenty of good things about PDF, taken as a way to represent a printed page. But it certainly is not a good format to exchange documents that are meant to be readable by everyone.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Isn't Adobe eBook just PDF with some DRM stuff added?
I won't clutter this with too many "I was there" stories nor add my view of the value of PDF to prepress operations. But ever since Sun rolled over on its support from its own Display PostScript-based Network extensible Window System (NeWS) in the face of the tide of X, I have been intrigued by how Adobe has managed to become so important to the Web without ever really getting it.
At its heart, Adobe never quite manages to shake its cultural foundation in the (permanent) placement of dots on paper and take on the very different challenge of realising the potential of interactive displays and ever "under construction" documents. (Nor does much of the printing industry but that is another story.)
Having been seduced by PostScript from the start, how do we now deal with the enigmatic prospect that Adobe also appears to be the driving force behind the great white hope of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)?
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
At least, according to King Arthur (Monty Python)
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
The computer industry already had a standard format for controlling the layout, fonts, and appearance of printed text. Tex. I'm not real familiar with it, but I know it existed in the 70's, is still around as LaTex, and I think it's not proprietary. So can anyone clarify whether PDF has advantages over LaTex for anyone besides Adobe?
"Camelot"... laid out the foundation for what has become Acrobat/PDF.
I dont see what the hubbub is.. its only a model.
no
Having used LyX for a couple of years, I've found it to be incredibly useful for many simple documents and poster displays. The one gripe that I have, though, is with the conversion to PDFs when you have embedded postscript files, or the page is a non-standard size. The PDF it produces can be very wonky, and/or suffer from the dreaded "embedded bitmapped font" syndrome which makes PDFs about 10 times larger and look shit on a computer screen.
The good news is that the LyX team are very aware of these kinds of problems and they are very enthusiastic with helping you out, even with simple questions. It's everything you hoped an enthusiastic Linux community would be.
does anyone have this article in PDF version?
Bitterman
Anybody else find it funny that you can download his document, the founder of .pdf, in .pdf format?
I like to think of PDF as an output format only. By using a flexible markup system like Docbook, you can export to a number of formats. PDF is excellent (and often required) by book printers. It provides an unambiguous picture of how a book should be laid out.
To me, PDF is a lot like a system executable. You write the document in some portable source code, then compile it for a particular need. Of course, this is a very different philosophy than WYSIWYG edits. Oh well.
I am amazed to see how much possitive things people have to say about PDF here at /. The popularity of PDF is one of the most broken things about the web. TBL was quite familar with PDF when he invented HTML -- it was the problems with PDF (and word processor formats) that motivated him!
PDF promotes archaic thinking. Information needs structure not paper-oriented formating! PDF also causes huge amounts of trouble for the blind and others with print handicaps. It is not a proper format for on-line viewing. Its proper place is only for lawyers and others who overly cherish the "original" hard copy document.
Complain about PDF wherever you encounter it when HTML would be better! HTML can be accessible, but most office suites do such a bad job with their HTML export that authors who have tried that think the PDF will be a better "linga franca". They are wrong.
php also has built-in PDF editing and creation functions as well, FWIW.
LXXIV. PDF functions (PHP)
And here's the PDFlib for Perl which allows much of the same functionality (create/modify)
CPAN PDFLib
Also, last time I checked, I could still edit PDF files in Acrobat (authoring suite) or Illustrator.
I also remember programming a bit of Postscript in college as well... do PDF/PS really qualify as closed architectures?
Who's had problems with pdf files?
When building a site for Lucent in '97 or so, we had to publish documents that included rather detailed images with small text. On many printers around the world, they would not print legibly, and often they were illegible on the screen as well. It took a lot of futzing to get versions that were more broadly printable and we never reallly figured out the problem.
Then I didn't generate any pdf's until about a month ago when, surprise, the same thing happened! This time in relatively simple forms. The client couldn't print nice copies, so we told her to try a different (newer) printer and of course, that fixed the problem.
Am I the only one who's seen this? Or is it just an acceptable issue for most people?
NeXTStep realised that dream, as does Mac OS X. Apple is now the largest Unix OS vendor on the planet, so it's fair to say that the majority of Unix systems now realise this dream.
If we discount Windows users, on the basis that they are not qualified to make informed decisions about anything (or else they wouldn't be using Windows) it looks like that dream has been mainly realised, in fact.
Hooray!
What the hell do you think eBook is?!?
PDF + cheesy encryption.
"Of course, now it's 2002, and the dream of universal display / printing remains only partly realized; PDFs really have helped to narrow the gap between dream and reality, though."
Oh, come on -- let's be realistic, here. PDF has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Is it perfect? No, but it's far and away as successful as any other multi-platform software that's ever existed, and I certainly am including Java. "Narrow the gap," indeed. It's closed it, for all intents and purposes, except for folks who really, *really* care _exactly_ about what stuff looks like (eg. marketing weenies), and then they should really be using the same s/w as their production agencies/dep'ts, anyway. I guess I'm just defending against your damning with faint praise, since I think that PDF has been a Godsend, right across the board. If it weren't for PDFs, we'd certainly all have to be opening up our favorite docs in Word, nowadays. Instead, we have a reasonably open standard, with the ability to read/generate PDFs with free software, and nevertheless a commercial community to back it up. I entirely fail to see this as the qualified success that Timothy seems to see it as. Note that, as someone else pointed out, NeXT, etc., have done a better job -- but I'm talking about PDF addressing the needs of an imperfect, cross-platform world, not various OSes that have managed to do it right.
I just wish some people used the PDF format more wisely. The other day I came across a page that was simply a PDF file containing one image and a little text--stuff that would have been better presented as simple HTML, and would have loaded faster besides.
The coolest voice ever.
So by this argument, HTML and XML would be an even bigger, more revolutionary, format.
PDF is no better than DOC - and as MS's market share shows, not used as much as DOC. However, I understand they serve different purposes.
Of the java libraries only pj allows reading PDF; the others can only write PDF.
PDF is not editable in general, although there are tools that allow some changes.
The PDF format is an open standard. From any OS X application you can generate a PDF. Just go to the Print Preview and you have a great looking PDF you can send to anyone.
Mac Lover since June, 2001.
That's a terrible idea.
The basic problem with executable documents is that about all you can do is execute them. Editing them is tough. Conversion to another format is tough (PDF->HTML translation often sucks.) Search engines have trouble indexing executable documents reliably.
Compare HTML, which is declarative, not executable. It's much easier to do things with an HTML document than a PostScript, PDF, or TeX document. You can reformat for a different screen size, you can view it in a text browser, and you can even listen to it in an audio browser.
What PDF and PostScript tend to actually look like is a big block of canned code at the the beginning that converts whatever the generating program likes to generate, followed by the actual content in some nonstandard format. That's a pain to deal with.
Microsoft's .DOC format, while deliberately obscure and inconsistent, is a declarative format which can do most of the things PDF can. But you can also re-edit a .DOC document, which doesn't work on PDF or PostScript.
Now that we have enough experience with machine-readable documents to know what we need and don't need in the format, we don't have to use executable formats. PDF as a distribution format should go, and PostScript's role should be limited to printing.
Which converts RDF to RTF.
The statement "This page intentionally left blank" makes absolutely certain that there is no information worth reading on that page. Working with engineering documents, I frequently use drawings and specifications that have been faxed or stored on microfilm. If a page was just blank, you could never be sure if:
1) There was some information there, but it was lost in transmission.
2) Someone screwed up and copied the document wrong.
like back in 2000 when win2000 was released and MacOS didn't even have virtual memory and multitasking.
You're right I've written too fast :-(
pstoedit converts PostScript and PDF to several editable vector-graphic formats: http://home.t-online.de/home/helga.glunz/wglunz/ps toedit/
pdf://
Rich Text Format, folks.
It's not suffectient for EVERY document, but nearly every word processor on the planet can read (and write) them, and you'd be surprised what can be captured in an RTF file.
The OmniWeb browser uses them for web archives (or did at one time), and I couldn't beleive how beautifully it kept the page appearance the first time I saw it.
I wonder that more people don't standardize on it.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
I am a programmer and I have built a PDF library for Borland Delphi. My library writes PDF files byte by byte, without using Adobe software.
The PDF file format is an example of a hard to use command language. We struggled for hours to get text right-aligned, etc.
The Adobe documentation for PDF has about 800 pages. Unfortunately, it is very badly written. It seems to be written by a somebody who is not a developer, and has no idea how to write documents for developers.
It may seem that I'm bashing PDF. I am, but for a reason.
Certainly I wouldn't like this (bad) format to gain ground.
I thought about mod'ing you down for this, but decided to post because I believe that you may need to get a few things straight.
First off, PS is an open format. It is publicly documented and you can develop freely upon it. What Dmitry did was violating Adobe's IP rights when he released it. This is a fact. Is it right? No. Is the DMCA right? No. But, Adobe's actions in the eBook case have absolutely nothing to do with the openness of the PS format.
Because of this, you are trolling because you are saying inflammatory and incorrect statements with an intent to get a negative reaction from the croud. The moderation was valid, and you made no valid point in your post.
To further clarify, you can't say that everything a company does is wrong based off a set of actions. That's called bigotry. Even Microsoft has it's merits of positive contribution to the computing industry. Deal with it, and get off the band wagon.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
PS != PDF!
PS != eBook!
My valid point was that PDF and its eBook derivative format is NOT open or free, if Dmitry is "violating" IP rights.
Furthermore, I never said everything Adobe does is wrong. Stop stuffing words into my mouth.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Uhm, PS == Open Format. Go re-read the thread.
I was also discussing your mentality. Relating two non-relating things by a sad legal incident is, at best, stupid and wrong. PS is FREE. PS is OPEN. No matter how much you want to distort your reality, that fact remains.
Deal with it. Also, learn the difference between PS and PDF, k?
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Also, learn the difference between PS and PDF, k?
WTF? I never said anything about PS. Did I mention 'PS' in my original post? NO! I certainly know the difference between PS and PDF. YOU were the one who erroneously used the term 'PS' in your reply to me.
I said PDF was not open. I used Dmitry and the eBook case as an example, because if PDF (and by extension, eBook) was open, why would Dmitry have any "IP rights" to violate anyways, if he's just following/documenting a standard? (ie, not re-using copyrighted Adobe code, etc)?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
The main problem I see is that its designed to reproduce print-like quality, which is great for when you need a hard copy, but the trend to turn PDF into a lazy man's HTML is definately for the worse.
PDF should not be used as a replacement for HTML. Just as people should be shot for making flash only sites, they should be shot for just slapping a bunch of images or PDFs up, and calling it a 'website'. PDF has its uses, and the problem is that there are still a fair number of folks using the technology incorrectly. Likewise, there are folks who still try to send HTML e-mails to me. You'll do better if you attempt to educate folks about the technology than just blowing it off.
First, the filesize is ridiculous.
Yes and no. When handled correctly, it's quite reasonable. The problems are when someone scans in a 50 page document, and saves it all as images, with no compression, and you're looking at 65-70k per page. When you start comparing similar, correctly formatted items (not too many folks have graphics laden 300 page manuals in MS word hanging around), but when you compare it to a similar EPS file, or even something pre-press, like Quark or PageMaker, it's about right. For those folks who need to have the memo or whatever saved electronically exactly as it came in, well, there's options for
The interface needs a lot of work, unless I have a scrolling mouse I won't even bother reading one. The little hand widget must go. Also, I don't want to have to resize my screen to be able to read half the poorly produced PDFs out there. No use in jumping to the next page when I can only display 2/3 of the current one. So back to the little hand.
This is an application issue, and not a document standards issue. Personally, I use the pageup/pagedown keys normally.
They're non-editable for the most part once you make them.
Yet another pre-conceived falsehood. The problem is that you have Acrobat Reader, which only reads PDF files. There's a similar companion program for MS Word for those who want to read MS Word files, but don't want to shell out to be able to write them.
However, in this case, last year, when my roommate was entering the Games Workshop WH40k Grand Tournament, they had put up the application as a PDF. Unfortunately, wanted you to print it out, and write in the fields. I don't like that concept, so I opened it up in a full copy of Acrobat, and make it a little more functional. (added some fields, some automatic calculations, etc.)
They are in a closed format and controlled by a litigious company unafraid to use the DMCA for their own questionable ends.
*yawn*. You're starting to pull at straws, man. You could make that argument about just about any company who had a software product that they're not giving away for free. If you want to talk about some real hard asses, look up Kodak's Picture CD format.
The plug-ins are notoriously buggy.
Once again, straws. I'm guessing my definition of 'notorious' and yours differ greatly. It's rock-solid on a Mac. You might just want to move to a more stable OS.
Its great for sending something straight to the laser printer, but as an on-line advance it really just stinks.
Once again. You have to look at folks who use it correctly. There are times when PDF is the better format. Any sort of application or form that needs to be printed and signed can be filled on online, then printed, signed, and sent in. You get your pretty-printed version, and you reduce text-entry and the possibility for user error on the backend. [You just queue it up, and have someone verify they didn't change anything when you get the signed copy].
Personally, I feel that Flash and HTML3 were crappy advancements, due to the amount that people misuse them. The same with JavaScript and CSS. There are right times, and wrong times for just about any technology. There will never be one product which will solve every problem that folks might have, and to think that it might ever happen is just plain ignorant. PDF fills certain niche markets better than HTML ever will. Likewise, HTML better fills other niches. Just because you don't have the same uses that other folks have doesn't mean the product 'just stinks'.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Ok, you responded to a thread about the openness of PS and clarity about the trademark issues and the Adobe PS RIP sayin that PDF was not open and brought Dmitry's case into it to add extra emotional excitement.
You don't even make any sense anymore. I wish I would have just modded you down, which is a practice I typically don't do but you have proven yourself stupid and misinformed.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
I suppose that's what the "page resize/rotate" option does in print options.
I print letter docs on A4s at work all day long, no problem.
The five free online file conversions that lamj mentioned are available at CreatePDF.Adobe.com. It allows you to convert from almost any document format, and even optimize for print or regular display. It will even let you to password protect the PDFs it produces, though this may require the non-trial version.
my blog
Adobe promote PDF as an all-round solution for both printing and online reading. But anyone who wants a lightweight, cross-platform document format for online display should choose HTML.
Although PDFs can contain features like bookmarks and hyperlinks, these simply aid navigation through the document, they don't make reading a PDF any easier on the eye (admittedly, Adobe have developed their own on-screen anti-aliasing technology called CoolType which improves font display on LCD screens).
The simple fact is: HTML is a more accessible format for online display. With a well-designed HTML page, users can enlarge text and have it reflow around graphics etc. All you can do with the majority of current PDFs is zoom in to a page (and then scroll awkwardly left and right if the page doesn't fit on the screen). Version 5 of Acrobat now has the facility to allow text reflow and re-sizing. But taking advantage of this feature means giving up some of the layout certainty that attracts many document designers in the first place! What this really demonstrates is that one size does not fit all!
Paper and online reading habits are different and they need different approaches. The current PDF solution may work well for printing documents, but works poorly as an online medium. Consider that every decent book on HTML states that designing for the page and designing for the screen are quite different, so how can a faithful reproduction of a printed page be appropriate for online viewing?
Although HTML and stylesheets do not match the precise layout control that PDFs provide, it seems to me they represent a much better way forward for cross-platform document creation.
Once a document has been converted to PDF it is pretty much useless as a document. It can't be edited, it can't be imported into another format such as .SWD, it's difficult and slow to search etc. This is because it's been converted to what is basically a graphic format.
PDFs are a pain in the neck. They take forever to download.
I'm just thankful for google's "view as HTML" feature which allows those anoying PDFs to be viewed and searched more quickly and saved in a text format if need be.
For those rare occasions when I truly want a photograph of a document e.g. a letter with a signature or official seal stamped on it I find it much more useful to scan the document and save it as a gif.
FWIW,
Steve
*** Please visit my homepage for news and info. about trademark law, domain-name disputes and other e-commerce issues
...to publish it as a pdf document instead of HTML?
Yeah, I'm biased, but still....
- AC
Guess what dipshit... 'Cheesy Encryption' IS NOT an open standard, making eBook NOT an open standard.
WTF? All I said is I don't like the PDF format, I find it awkward to use! Will the moderator please GO FUCK HIMSELF, how's that for flamebait? Bring it on!
No, size is not ridiculous. Here's the file sizes for an A4 sheet, mainly text with line art, exported as an ASCII format PDF and also exported as a 96dpi PNG image:
176k game.png
68k game.pdf
Hmm? Ridiculous?