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Adobe To Release Full PDF Specification to ISO

nickull writes "Adobe announced it will release the entire PDF specification (current version 1.7 ) to the International Standards Organization (ISO) via AIIM. PDF has reached a point in its maturity cycle where maintaining it in an open standards manner is the next logical step in evolution. Not only does this reinforce Adobe's commitment to open standards (see also my earlier blog on the release of flash runtime code to the Tamarin open source project at Sourceforge), but it demonstrates that open standards and open source strategies are really becoming a mainstream concept in the software industry. So what does this really mean? Most people know that PDF is already a standard so why do this now? This event is very subtle yet very significant. PDF will go from being an open standard/specification and de facto standard to a full blown de jure standard. The difference will not affect implementers much given PDF has been a published open standard for years. There are some important distinctions however. First — others will have a clearly documented process for contributing to the future of the PDF specification. That process also clearly documents the path for others to contribute their own Intellectual property for consideration in future versions of the standard. Perhaps Adobe could have set up some open standards process within the company but this would be merely duplicating the open standards process, which we felt was the proper home for PDF. Second, it helps cement the full PDF specification as the umbrella specification for all the other PDF standards under the ISO umbrella such as PDF/A, PDF/X and PDF/E. The move also helps realize the dreams of a fully open web as the web evolves (what some are calling Web 2.0), built upon truly open standards, technologies and protocols."

275 comments

  1. Whoho by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That MS XML format had some worth after all :DDD

  2. There is OS and OS by El+Lobo · · Score: 1

    There are 2 types of OS: the "normal" one and the discriminatory one. So anybody but Microsoft can use this "Clos...Open Source" project?

    --
    It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
    1. Re:There is OS and OS by davemc · · Score: 1

      Keep in mind that specification has been open for quite a while and that anyone can create products to it. This isn''t a implementation release. I've used multiple compies of pdf tools on my Mac (including preview itself), and a creation tool called PDFpen as well.

      An interesting view and timeline can be found here:
      http://www.acrobatusers.com/blogs/leonardr/history -of-pdf-openness/

      The release of pdf to ISo is a big deal, since it lets all good ideas flow together

      --
      Open Source Ronin
  3. ISO approved PDF by Xymor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is this a nail in the MS XML coffin?

    1. Re:ISO approved PDF by FunkeyMonk · · Score: 1

      Yup - I suspect that Adobe is really just trying to insulate themselves from Windows encroaching on their territory.

    2. Re:ISO approved PDF by DogDude · · Score: 0, Troll

      Good God, no. Or at least I hope not. Even the most verbose XML couldn't come close to the unbelievable bloat that is .PDF. I got sick of PDF's taking forever to loading, and the reader hanging constantly on our PC's at work, so I banned them from from the office. It shouldn't take a bleeding edge machine to open plain old documents in a reasonable amount of time.

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    3. Re:ISO approved PDF by nbritton · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Is this a nail in the MS XML coffin?"

      ISO/IEC 26300:2006 (OpenDocument Format) was the first nail.

    4. Re:ISO approved PDF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You've got to be kidding. Adobe's reader sucks balls, but that's not the fault of PDF. The PDF format is quite slender compared to XML.

    5. Re:ISO approved PDF by vhogemann · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Blame AcrobatViewer, not PDF.

      Evince is fast and snappy here on my old and busted PIII 700Mhz, with only 128MB RAM.

      --
      ---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
    6. Re:ISO approved PDF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope - it's Adobe trying to salvage their ass. Since the MS format is going open-standard, Adobe must do something to prop up their proprietary system. I wonder how Adobe's IP licensing will be affected by this? PDF licensing has to be at least some revenue.

    7. Re:ISO approved PDF by Zadaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Acrobat reader is widely known to be a resource hog, but banning PDFs is short sighted and reactionary. It's like banning shoes because you tripped once.

      Foxit. Windows and (now) Linux. Takes about 1/2 a second to open.

      If you have a Mac, you have a slick one built in.

    8. Re:ISO approved PDF by rucs_hack · · Score: 1

      Likely they did it because they knew if they didn't, then microsofts format would possibly beat them to the punch. After all many other things were de-facto standards before microsoft got interested and destroyed them.

      I like pdf, and see no reason to use another format for tasks I'd use a pdf for, personally.

    9. Re:ISO approved PDF by kripkenstein · · Score: 1

      I ran some tests on all the PDF viewers for Linux. xPDF used the least RAM and was the fastest. However, it has less features than e.g. Evince, and doesn't always render 100% correctly. Still, I use it on a daily basis (seeing as I often have several PDFs open for days).

    10. Re:ISO approved PDF by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Is this a nail in the MS XML coffin?

      First, hopefully you were referring to XPS (XML Paper Specification) and not OpenXML, which many of the replies seem to assume. I don't see this as a counter move actually, but rather as business as usual. PDF has been an open standard for a long time and I don't know that any real player has any trouble getting Adobe to add to the spec. I'm glad they've formalized the process and renewed their commitment to keeping PDF an open standard.

      I also don't see that PDF has much of a chance in the battle against XPS. Unless Microsoft is forbidden from bundling readers and writers with Windows, it will take over most of the market via that monopoly leveraging. By the time the courts act I suspect the market will already be destroyed and everyone will be locked into one set of tools made by MS. The courts will eventually rule against MS, and Adobe will get some money, but the market will never be repaired and consumers will be stuck with a PDF replacement where they can only get tools from one vendor and those tools will never be improved again.

      I could be wrong. The courts could be faster than molasses or the industry as a whole could see the trap coming and stick with PDF despite MS. I don't suspect that will be the case though. The most realistic hopeful scenario would be Linux adoption by corporations and government taking off for managed desktops and OS X taking off in the home market sufficiently that the Windows monopoly is weakened enough so that MS cannot effectively manage a takeover based on their monopoly alone.

    11. Re:ISO approved PDF by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      I wonder how Adobe's IP licensing will be affected by this? PDF licensing has to be at least some revenue. I am not quite sure what you are smoking to come up with that. The PDF specification has been available for download for free, with no constraints on what it can be used for for years. Or did you think the xpdf developers were paying a license fee to Adobe for you to use their app? As with PostScript, Adobe released the specification for anyone to use, and made money by providing an implementation.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    12. Re:ISO approved PDF by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1
      PDF is already pretty entrenched. If you want to produce something printer-ready, you generate a PDF. It looks exactly the same on paper, Windows, OS X, or any other OS. There are a couple of Free Software viewers, OS X comes with one, and there are a few free ones for Windows.

      You can already make reasonable (buy not great) PDFs via a free printer driver in Windows (and OS X / *NIX). Tools like OpenOffice and pdflatex produce better ones (with metadata containing the table of contents and hyperlinks, for example). I suspect the only thing that will generate XPS is Microsoft Office, and if this is the case it doesn't really have much of an advantage over OpenXML as an interchange format; both of them are only currently implemented by Microsoft, and will, no doubt, have free viewers for Windows but no good way of reading them anywhere else.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    13. Re:ISO approved PDF by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Even the most verbose XML couldn't come close to the unbelievable bloat that is .PDF.

      The PDF standard does not seem particularly bloated to me.

      I got sick of PDF's taking forever to loading, and the reader hanging constantly on our PC's at work, so I banned them from from the office. It shouldn't take a bleeding edge machine to open plain old documents in a reasonable amount of time.

      Ignorance is one of the main reasons why open standards lose to MS proprietary ones in the market. The average person does not understand the advantages. One of the main advantages is that no one is locked into a single vendor for their tools. Despite this almost everyone uses the combination of Window+IE+Adobe Acrobat Reader Plug-in. This is a terrible toolset and is bloated, slow, and poorly designed. Windows can't multi-task memory resources if your life depended upon it. IE itself is bloated and poorly handles threading plug-ins and will hang the whole process until a download is complete. The acrobat plug-in is slow and bloated with all the default settings turned on. The end result is an average user with an average machine clicking on a PDF link and their whole machine grinding to a halt while it waits for the download to finish, then they get to wait yet longer while the Acrobat plug-in eventually gets around to its main purpose.

      The solution is, quite simply, don't use that combination of tools. If you're on Windows there are plenty of great, free PDF readers. Foxit is my favorite. On Linux I like XPDF and on OS X I like Preview. You have choices because PDF is an open standard. Blaming a standard for the failings of a given tool is just plain incorrect.

      Now I imagine you won't care what I say anyway and will be quite happy when Microsoft's bundled XPS format takes over the market. It will even render faster for you for some time, since the default tools will be built into the OS's display APIs. You'll probably be happy about this for years until you realize you can't move to another platform because all your files are trapped in one only MS's reader will open. Moreover, you'll probably be wondering why you need a top end machine 5 years from now to open files you used to be able to open on your old machine, but since there will only be one reader available you'll be stuck with that. And if they start adding DRM as a mandatory feature on XPS files, so that you have to register all the documents you create with MS, well what can you do? Sure you'll complain about these things, but what will you do? Everyone uses XPS and if you ever want to submit a resume you need to have Windows with its built-in XPS tools.

      ...or maybe you won't. Maybe you and the rest of the industry will wise up to the advantages of open standards, as a few large organizations currently seem to be doing. Maybe you'll just download a good PDF viewer and think to yourself, wow I'm glad I have options and I'm not stuck with just one viewer, that would suck."

    14. Re:ISO approved PDF by Sax+Maniac · · Score: 2, Informative

      Or, just disable the 952 plugins you don't use. Acrobat reader launchs plenty fast without loading them all.

      --
      I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
    15. Re:ISO approved PDF by ruzel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      IT people with your attitude drive me insane and give us all bad names. I can't imagine what kind of hoops your people have to jump through to get a stupid digital document. "Sorry, Ron, the asshole in IT won't let us use PDFs, can you send me a Word doc?" A University I was affiliated with did the same thing with regard to zip files. Zip files!!! So hundreds of scientists can't get work done because ONE jackass can't figure out how to better protect them than just outright banning a file type from email.

      Find a solution to the problem. That's your job.

    16. Re:ISO approved PDF by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 1

      I got sick of PDF's taking forever to loading, and the reader hanging constantly on our PC's at work, so I banned them from from the office. It shouldn't take a bleeding edge machine to open plain old documents in a reasonable amount of time.

      XPS is built into Windows Vista. I believe all new programs on Vista will generate XPS output the same way those on OS X can generate PDF. Just being built into Office would put a big dent into the market, since XPS files will open faster than PDF, but the fact that pretty much all users can read them without downloading a reader will make them tempting for many current companies that make PDFs. You know all those manuals and user guides online for products, XPS is going to start making sense to those publishers in the near future. I also suspect MS will release XPS readers for multiple platforms. We'll have to see about writers, probably just for OS X.

      I think you're underestimating the danger posed by MS's bundling. IE is not better at rendering HTML than other browsers, but it is on every Windows machine so developers target it to the exclusion of all else. They may well do the same thing with portable documents, moving to XPS as the primary format, despite all the limitations.

    17. Re:ISO approved PDF by Atzanteol · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I also suspect MS will release XPS readers for multiple platforms.

      Like Windows 2003, Windows XP, Windows Vista, etc.?

      --
      "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

      - Charles Darwin
    18. Re:ISO approved PDF by Nasarius · · Score: 1

      I believe all new programs on Vista will generate XPS output the same way those on OS X can generate PDF. Just being built into Office would put a big dent into the market
      I think you're mistaken about this. I don't know about other programs, but you actually need to download a plugin to get XPS or PDF output in Office 2007. See here for example. Reading between the lines, Microsoft would probably have been guilty of abusing their monopoly if everything XPS was bundled with the OS -- Netscape/IE all over again. Adobe threatened them, and they backed down.
      --
      LOAD "SIG",8,1
    19. Re:ISO approved PDF by sconeu · · Score: 1

      Where is the options page for this? I literally looked at every menu option and couldn't find it!

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    20. Re:ISO approved PDF by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 1

      See here for example. Reading between the lines, Microsoft would probably have been guilty of abusing their monopoly if everything XPS was bundled with the OS -- Netscape/IE all over again. Adobe threatened them, and they backed down.

      If you read the post you link to you'll see several comments that support my opinion. He says XPS is built into Vista, but that they are providing an option to OEMs to remove it from the version they ship, doubtless without a corresponding reduction in cost. I think this is their attempt to muddy the waters for any antitrust case. After all, they still get away with bundling WMP in the EU by shipping another version of Windows with it stripped out. Of course anyone buying it still pays full price and thus has to pay equally the development costs of WMP along with those that actually get the software, so they are basically subsidizing those users. You'll also note that the poster contradicts himself when he says that they pulled XPS out of versions for those OEMs, then says since it is part of their printing it cannot be removed. So what he likely means is they hid that functionality so programs cannot get to it, in those special versions.

      Adobe threatened them, and they backed down.

      Adobe threatened them and they pulled the save as PDF from Office, not wanting Office to be found to be a monopoly (something they've gone out of their way to prevent in the past). They have not pulled XPS from Vista that I've heard of and it shows up on the feature list.

    21. Re:ISO approved PDF by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      The page in question is right here. It's too bad Adobe wouldn't provide us this functionality, but at least they didn't stop us from doing it...

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    22. Re:ISO approved PDF by benjcurry · · Score: 1

      Also Foxit Reader is agreat windows viewer. PDF isn't the problem, Acrobat is horrible. It has actually improved in the last couple of major releases, though. Not nearly as bad as it was.

    23. Re:ISO approved PDF by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 1

      Like Windows 2003, Windows XP, Windows Vista, etc.?

      Well, they claim to be licensing the format, so that would be some small company that will make a version for Mac OS X, and possibly for Linux. If they are smart they will provide free readers for both those platforms. Also, I haven't seen the license, but the write up claims they are licensing limited read/write functionality, so don't expect the version on other platforms to be a first class citizen.

    24. Re:ISO approved PDF by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      A University I was affiliated with did the same thing with regard to zip files. Zip files!!! So hundreds of scientists can't get work done because ONE jackass can't figure out how to better protect them than just outright banning a file type from email.

      We do that here at work. We've had to resort to actually using the FTP site even for small files. Which just adds another layer of annoyance. I tell people to make me 7zip archives but most of them can't even figure out how to get it downloaded :(

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    25. Re:ISO approved PDF by renoX · · Score: 1

      Agreed, if what I've seen on the web is true, Microsoft will provide an XPS reader in Vista, plus MS Office will generate XPS.

      So with a monopoly on OS + monopoly on Office suite to leverage XPS, it shouldn't be too hard to displace PDF in a few years (the time for Vista to become widespread with the renewal of PCs).

    26. Re:ISO approved PDF by BattleApple · · Score: 1

      I wish my IT department would apply this logic to the use of Lotus Notes and email.

    27. Re:ISO approved PDF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Evince is fast and snappy here on my old and busted PIII 700Mhz, with only 128MB RAM.

      Apparently you never did open a pdf file with more than a few dozen pages.

    28. Re:ISO approved PDF by xtracto · · Score: 1

      I second the use of Foxit Reader.

      I pirate most of the commercial software I have [comment will make sense in a minute]. I used to try all the available tricks for Acrobat Reader in order to make it fast. I once tried this Foxit reader (2 years ago IIRC) and although it was nice it was not compatible with some documents. However I downloaded it some months ago and have never looked back at the bloated Adobe Reader. It takes at most 5 seconds to open the Deitel^2 C# (Emuled) book which weights 300MB.

      And, one of the really cool things it has is the ability to mark and add comments to the documents. That has been INCREDIBLE useful for scientific papers reviews. [Un]fortunately you must buy a "pro" pack to use that or else the program will save the result file with a watermark (specifying that the program was unlicensed). This is one of the only programs I have *paid* to use (others include GetRight, Netscape and mmm Windoze as it came with my laptop...).

      I really recommend the program, and after I read your comment I downloaded the linux version. it seems OK but it is not as good as the Windows version. I am really looking forward to this version as neither Envince or KPDF or Xpdf has convinced me, they all just do not work the way I expect them to work (and Kpdf being a KDE program is a bit flaky)

      --
      Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
    29. Re:ISO approved PDF by SnapShot · · Score: 1

      At the company I worked for we all just got in the habit of renaming our .zip files .piz. If I see a .piz file I would immediately reach for WinZip.

      --
      Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
    30. Re:ISO approved PDF by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Our firewall is supposedly smart enough to check the filetype of attachments using magic numbers.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    31. Re:ISO approved PDF by Nyph2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You know holding shift while loading acrobat reader skips the loading of plugins & speeds up load time significantly on at least some versions. So depending on the version you're using, this may cut the loadtime enormously.
      http://www.microsystems.com/tipstricksdisplay.php? tipNo=007/

    32. Re:ISO approved PDF by I'm+Don+Giovanni · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I would hope not.
      First, Microsoft already announced that they are submitting XPS to ISO/ECMA. Adobe's announcement is a reaction to that.

      Second, XPS has more features than PDF, creates smaller file sizes, and is more easily manipulatable (that is, to make a program that manipulates XPS, you just take any XML parser and add the XPS semantics).

      Plus, Adobe reserves that right to sue anyone that uses PDF. They used legal threats to force Microsoft to remove PDF support from Office 2007 (out of the box; MS still provides a free PDF plugin for download). And that was wrt the current ISO PDF standard (PDF 1.4 I think), so simply being an ISO standard doesn't mean that Adobe won't sue anyone that uses it at their whim, for whatever reason they see fit.

      MS has covenant not to sue anyone that uses XPS (covenant not to sue is standard MS practice for the standards they release to ISO, ECMA, etc).

      --
      -- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
    33. Re:ISO approved PDF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does evince and friends handle fill & print forms and all the things that the PDF standard supports beyond simple document viewing?

    34. Re:ISO approved PDF by jafac · · Score: 1

      Actually - the latest Acrobat Reader (is it 8.0?) for OS X is wicked-fast compared to 7.0. I think what they did was ship it with the plugins disabled, :)

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    35. Re:ISO approved PDF by morcheeba · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This post is about .pdfs, please bear with me!

      Have you seen the Apple clock widget? I was poking around the code trying to find out why showing the clock took 10% of the CPU time, and I found the root of the problem: the second hand is redrawn about 10 times every time it moves. This simulates a little vibration, as you would have on a mechanical clock. I cut the code out to make it redraw only once, and the cpu time was negligible again.

      When I looked at the code, I saw something amazing: the clock hands were stored as .pdf files! Three pdf files, one for each hand. Amazing... apple felt that pdf was lightweight enough for general-purpose vector graphics.
      --
      anyway, I miss carrboro - you've got a great shop there!

    36. Re:ISO approved PDF by codemachine · · Score: 1

      Actually, blocking .zip was a valid short term solution to a virus problem where I worked. For a long while there, the vast majority of .zip files in the mail system were virus files from some stupid email worm. Allowing them through meant users would infect their computers, making the problems on the LAN and in the mail system even worse.

      Those users who can't figure out how to use another archive format or rename the file are the same users who would just click on a random .zip in their email, or have an email reader that helpfully just opens and executes it without a thought. Unfortunate but not unexpected correlation there.

      For a while, the department I'm in was blocking .zip too, but given that everyone here has access to unix, it shouldn't have been too difficult to resort to .tar.gz or bzip, or using the web and ftp space and sending a link (which is a better idea anyhow). When the virus died down, I believe the mailserver once again allowed .zip. Stopping the virus, as well as an open offer to help users who need to sent archives, constitues as "solving the problem" and "doing their job" to me. Especially since it was just a short term measure to weather a storm, not a "do things our way or else" mandate.

      However I realize some IT departments are not nearly as nice about it, and tend to take the technology into account before the users. Banning PDF would certainly fall into the category of not taking the users into account. Trying to lock down your users doesn't tend to work out that well - they are pretty good at finding ways around the locks, and tend to start avoiding the IT guys when they have computer issues, which is counterproductive.

    37. Re:ISO approved PDF by Sigg3.net · · Score: 0

      Yes, but tripping might kill or seriously harm you. You may trip over the edge of a cliff, for instance. Very dangerous. Or you might go on a road trip and get killed in the accident that was caused by a drunk driver, which always happen on road trips. Or maybe you're tripping on LCD and accidently thought your friend was a giant tomato with great, white fangs and an appetitie for destruction, in which case you reached down for your bazooka - LSD people have these layin' around - and in the heat of the moment forgot to step a few feet away from your target, blowing both you and your friend up. Then you'd be sorry insteada safe. So the safest thing to do is; drop the shoes.

      And install Foxit.

    38. Re:ISO approved PDF by Trelane · · Score: 1

      Adobe reserves that right to sue anyone that uses PDF.
      No, just like Microsoft, they have a patent covenant not to sue, provided you follow the spec.

      They used legal threats to force Microsoft to remove PDF support from Office 2007
      Well, that was certainly Microsoft's position, as reported in various news articles. Adobe's take on it is, of course, slightly different. They claim

      Adobe's concern is that Microsoft will fragment and possibly degrade existing and established standards, including PDF, while using its monopoly power to introduce Microsoft-controlled alternatives - such as XPS. The long-term impact of this kind of behavior is that consumers are ultimately left with fewer choices.

      And that was wrt the current ISO PDF standard (PDF 1.4 I think), so simply being an ISO standard doesn't mean that Adobe won't sue anyone that uses it at their whim, for whatever reason they see fit.
      You see, this is exactly the same problem with Microsoft.

      S has covenant not to sue anyone that uses XPS (covenant not to sue is standard MS practice for the standards they release to ISO, ECMA, etc).
      And so it is with PDF as well.
      --

      --
      Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
    39. Re:ISO approved PDF by TrancePhreak · · Score: 1

      Except that Adobe reserves the right to sue anyone it pleases. See case in point: MS trying to add PDF support to Office and being sued.

      --

      -]Phreak Out[-
    40. Re:ISO approved PDF by punkkid2 · · Score: 1

      Vista has an integrated .XPS reader. When I save a document with that extension with Office 2007, it opens by default with Internet Explorer, and takes FOREVER, expecially compared to Adobe Reader 8.

    41. Re:ISO approved PDF by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      If a zero-day worm is invading the whole company all kinds of short-term solutions become viable - shutting down email servers, firewalling all traffic, and killing every switch in a 20,000 employee site are are acceptable steps that can be taken to delay worm propagation.

      However, once signatures are updated and firewalls can properly filter traffic, none of these measures should be needed.

      By now every email server in the world should know how to scan zip files and every file inside. Yet, at work we have bans on dlls and exes inside of zip files requiring partners to email .zi_ files with .ex_ files inside (just renamed extensions - not the ancient MS distribution method). Password-protected zips apparently are also safe (which boggles my mind - if anything those are the ones that should be blocked since they can't be scanned).

      Companies should invest in their infrastructure a little so that they DON'T need to lock down every little feature on their computers and create user hassles...

    42. Re:ISO approved PDF by Sax+Maniac · · Score: 2, Informative

      They have no GUI so you have to hack it in. I found something like this years ago, and it's pretty obvious how to do it:

          http://gemal.dk/blog/2003/11/18/slow_acrobat_reade r/

      --
      I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
    43. Re:ISO approved PDF by vocaro · · Score: 1

      on OS X I like Preview

      Preview is good. PDFView is better.

    44. Re:ISO approved PDF by Lehk228 · · Score: 1

      if adobe really objects to microsoft bundling XPS tools with windows to kill off PDF they have a pretty powerful weapon at their disposal....

      photoshop linux binary

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    45. Re:ISO approved PDF by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > If you want to produce something printer-ready, you generate a PDF.

      Agreed.

      I have the same Excel spreadsheet on 2 computers -- one runs Win2K, the other WinXP, both connected to a network printer (XP), using the same driver. The dam file prints differently! At least with PDFs I get _consistent_ output.

      --
      Windows: Why it file system still blows?.doc

    46. Re:ISO approved PDF by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 1

      photoshop linux binary

      I wish that were true, but I don't think it is. A Linux version of photoshop would not really steal many customers from Windows. They account for something like 15% of mac users last I heard. Assuming half of all photoshop users are on Windows (a generous assumption from what I've seen) That would make up roughly 1.5% of Windows users. Since a lot of them are using Windows, a lot are probably in environments resistant to change, like Windows only shops with site licenses, or environments with Windows requirements (windows development, exchange houses, Word shops, IE requirements, etc.). Say they took half of that and Microsoft loses .75% of their install base, while Adobe has to port and support their huge mess of a code base. I don't see it as hurting MS that much for the cost.

      I see a lot more potential for hurting MS using Dreamweaver and GoLive. Set them up to create standards compliant HTML/CSS/HTML by default and add a really vitriolic "Your Web browser is broken and may be insecure, get Firefox" link for IE users. A whole lot of Web pages come out of those programs and if only 1 in 100 did not change those default settings, you'd see IE market share shredded. Another option would be to customize their apps using Apple's new Cocoa bindings functionality to take full advantage of OS X and advertise their entire product line as "works best on the more advanced OS X." That would be tantamount to declaring war.

    47. Re:ISO approved PDF by Bearhouse · · Score: 1

      Confirmed. Foxit and CutePDF - on WinXP much faster and more stable. Free, too.

    48. Re:ISO approved PDF by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 1

      First, Microsoft already announced that they are submitting XPS to ISO/ECMA. Adobe's announcement is a reaction to that.

      Considering MS's Website say they will license third parties to create software that has read/write functionality with some limitations, I don't see how it could be considered an "open" standard, which is what PDF already is.

      Second, XPS has more features than PDF, creates smaller file sizes, and is more easily manipulatable (that is, to make a program that manipulates XPS, you just take any XML parser and add the XPS semantics).

      XPS is basically OpenXML plus a directory of resources plus DRM, zipped up and given the XPS extension. It has all the limitations recently published for the OpenXML spec, including not being fully implementable by anyone but MS. As for having more capabilities or smaller file sizes, I seriously doubt it and would like some real citations to prove that, not MS marketing. Have there been any third party tests using recent versions of the PDF spec?

      Plus, Adobe reserves that right to sue anyone that uses PDF. They used legal threats to force Microsoft to remove PDF support from Office 2007...

      It is exactly this type of FUD that abolishes any credibility you might have had. They threatened MS over the inclusion of PDF and XPS with office. That had nothing to do with the formats and everything to do with antitrust law. You comment is akin to, Adobe threatened legal action after Bill Gates tried to stab someone to death with a shard of a CD-ROM that had the PDF spec on it. Obviously they will use their PDF patents to stop interoperability." It makes you look like complete idiot or an astroturfer. Adobe did not threaten to sue anyone over patents. They threatened to get the court system to go after MS for criminal conduct that happened to include their use of PDF among other formats.

      And that was wrt the current ISO PDF standard (PDF 1.4 I think), so simply being an ISO standard doesn't mean that Adobe won't sue anyone that uses it at their whim, for whatever reason they see fit.

      There are literally dozens of open and closed source commercial and free implementations of PDF readers and writers and Adobe has never sued any of them, nor would they have grounds to if they so desired.

      MS has covenant not to sue anyone that uses XPS (covenant not to sue is standard MS practice for the standards they release to ISO, ECMA, etc).

      Yeah, with all the same legal gothchas that appear in all of MS's supposed "open" formats. You need a beating with a clue-stick.

    49. Re:ISO approved PDF by matrixhax0r · · Score: 1

      Ah, then it will surprise you to learn that a large portion of nextstep technologies involve postscript integration? You know, there's a reason why Apple has good PDF support throughout their OS. I'm not saying that's it's a bad thing at all. It's saner than... shall we say WMF?

      --
      If it's no on fire, it's a hardware problem.
    50. Re:ISO approved PDF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      then tell your friends to just uuencode the zip before mailing it. email has to let text thru.

    51. Re:ISO approved PDF by Zzootnik · · Score: 1

      HA! Hack it in? Not quite that complex... think Mac OS9 and their directories for Disabled items-
      There's a Plugins Directory in the Acrobat folder. Make another parallel folder called "Plugins_Disabled". Move what you don't want loaded into there, and it Doesn't Load up! (But its still around in case you goofed and actually need it sometime...)
      Pretty simple...although I confess I haven't tried it on any versions more recent than Acro 5...Their forms related bits went to heck in a handbasket after 5....

      --
      Sig currently under construction. Mind the gap....
    52. Re:ISO approved PDF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Adobe has submitted and got accepted previous PDF specs as ISO standards. (PDF/X-1a = ISO 15930-1;PDF/X-3 = ISO 15930-3; PDF/A = ISO 19005-1.)

      And regarding the XML hoopla, see Adobe's project Mars and Adobe Mars wiki.

    53. Re:ISO approved PDF by 75th+Trombone · · Score: 1

      You said:

      then tell your friends to just uuencode the zip before mailing it.

      He said:

      I tell people to make me 7zip archives but most of them can't even figure out how to get it downloaded

      See the problem?

      --
      The United States of America: We do what we must because we can.
    54. Re:ISO approved PDF by MojoStan · · Score: 1

      I also suspect MS will release XPS readers for multiple platforms.
      Like Windows 2003, Windows XP, Windows Vista, etc.?
      Good guess. MS has released readers for those three plus Windows 2000. No Microsoft-made readers for Linux, OS X, et. al. yet. If they're serious about competing with the format that the freakin' IRS uses, I assume they'll make readers for other platforms. I don't think it's wise to wait for 3rd party readers that might be flakey.
      --
      TO START
      PRESS ANY KEY

      Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...

    55. Re:ISO approved PDF by HugeFatty · · Score: 1

      It's like banning shoes because you tripped once.

      No man. Twice.

      I should have listened to that saying...Fool me once....

      Damn shoes.

      --


      I am clearly fatter than you.
    56. Re:ISO approved PDF by syousef · · Score: 1

      I got sick of PDF's taking forever to loading, and the reader hanging constantly on our PC's at work, so I banned them from from the office

      Do you have any idea at all how obnoxious you're sounding? I hope that your cleaners at work ban eating and drinking in the office because it's just too hard to clean stuff. Hell lock the toilets. They're a nightmare to clean. There are people in your office who probably have legitimate reasons for wanting to view information - job related and otherwise - that they now can't because you decided to abuse your tiny bit of power.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    57. Re:ISO approved PDF by SnapShot · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I would have thought that this major F500 company would have something a little more secure (assuming they cared enough to place the restriction on .zip files in the first place) but changing the extension was enough.

      I guess the logic is something like this: most of our viruses come from people who are not skilled enough to change the file extension therefore banning files based on extensions will solve 90% of our problems.

      I'm not saying I agree with it I was just happy at the time that there was a fairly easy work-around.

      --
      Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
  4. Update to office 2007 by Kieranties · · Score: 0

    I wonder if Bill would decide it is a good idea. Obviously people have been producing pdf's via Latex and wysiwyg tools for years, but the inclusion of the pdf format in office 2007 could have some pretty big impact in business environments. Doen't really matter to me, i'm off to play with my new mac :D

    --
    gokugone.com "Bah-weep-grah-nah-weep-ninny
    1. Re:Update to office 2007 by battery111 · · Score: 1

      wow, I haven't heard the term wysiwyg in a very long time. People have become so used to them, they forget that current word processors are a gift compared to volkswriter. Now how much did I date myself in this field with that comment?

    2. Re:Update to office 2007 by newt0311 · · Score: 1

      are you kidding, WYSIWYG is a pain in the ass the moment you start working with complex form elements and metadata. Thats why I use LaTeX. That and easy PDF output with no lock in...

    3. Re:Update to office 2007 by Hatta · · Score: 1

      wow, I haven't heard the term wysiwyg in a very long time.

      That's because "what you see is what you get" isn't very good. Frequently "what you see isn't what you want".

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  5. I didn't understand.. by Awod · · Score: 1
    So I went to read the article..

    The system was unable to find the module you requested to edit (moduleID ).
    1. Re:I didn't understand.. by iago-vL · · Score: 1

      I love how "login with your account" is a suggested fix for "module not found." I logged in with a trusted bugmenot login, and go figure it still couldn't find the module!

  6. Kudos to them by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I tip my hat to them.

    I don't know that this move has more meaning today than if it was done two years ago, but I certainly see more motivation today. The purpose of the ODF is to ensure that 100 years from now we can still access data. Closed formats mean data may not be accessible in the future. PDF used to be the sole means to have a document look exactly the same across any platform. That is no longer the case, and even Microsoft has opened the standard (mostly) on their new Office data files.

    While I still applaud the effort, Adobe is late to the party.

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    1. Re:Kudos to them by c_fel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      PDF used to be the sole means to have a document look exactly the same across any platform. That is no longer the case, and even Microsoft has opened the standard (mostly) on their new Office data files.

      No, I disagree. Even when open office formats, the document won't look exactly the same on one an other platform. Example : the open document format (.odt) renders somewhat differently when opened in OpenOffice for Windows and OpenOffice for Linux. And it may be completely different when opened with koffice.
      The content is the same, though.

      What I believe is the .pdf excels in porting the exactly same layout of a page between platforms and softwares, while Office files excel in porting the exact editable content. Their goals are simply not the same.

      --
      I hate all sigs, mine included.
    2. Re:Kudos to them by Ucklak · · Score: 2, Informative

      You can't account for fonts. PDF allows insertion of fonts. That is what makes it 100% compatible across platforms and rips.

      --
      if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
    3. Re:Kudos to them by Enderandrew · · Score: 1

      Hrm, interesting. Apart from fonts, which was just mentioned, I can't imagine why the same application itself would render the same format differently across two platforms.

      But I do agree that you brought up a good point. OpenOffice isn't striving to make the same document look exactly the same across all platforms. They are just trying to make the same data accessible and editable across all platforms.

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    4. Re:Kudos to them by hackstraw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I tip my hat to them.

      I do too. This is a very mature and wise decision for Adobe to make.

      I know now that I was wrong, but I did not care for PDFs for years. And still to this day I have issues with people that don't do them correctly (basically those that put a bunch of huge images into a PDF container).

      But with the advent of Linux and especially OS X being able to create PDFs so easily, and I can share documents with anybody and have them look like they are supposed to look is very nice.

      Although I would have prefered if this was an open spec with quality PDF generators from day one, 10 years or so of progress to that ultimate goal is not bad in the long run.

      This model should be _the_ standard for propriatary data formats. By that, I mean going from propriatary to an open standard if it cannot be an open standard from the beginning. Autodesk, MS, etc, I'm looking at you for adopting such a respectable decision for document formats.

    5. Re:Kudos to them by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      MS word is notorious for looking different on different computers, even using the same version. Its a fact that two identical computers with identical versions of MS word, will render a document differently if they have different printers. Why is this? I can't understand the logic behind having the printer determining how a document looks. Why not just ignore the printer? The first problem is that word processors are overcomplicated and try to take too importance on exactly how the document is rendered. The other problem is that people expect entirely too much from their word processor. It evolved from a point where the word processor file was just a flat text file with maybe a couple tags for making text appear a certian way, to a system where you can insert a movie into a document (you can't print the movie). The word processor tries to be the be-all-and-end-all of computer applications, and hence fails miserably

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    6. Re:Kudos to them by 1u3hr · · Score: 1
      I can't imagine why the same application itself would render the same format differently across two platforms.

      Just because it has the same name doesn't mean it's the same application. Or even if it were the same binary running under emulation, differences can occur.

    7. Re:Kudos to them by scuba0 · · Score: 1

      The biggest problem that I see is Microsofts unwillingness to apply .odt readable OK. MS Office is often mentioned as the more "advanced" of the office suits, but test to edit equations, diagrams, and other useful functions and it fails.

    8. Re:Kudos to them by gatzke · · Score: 1

      But I still get garbage printing some pdf stuff on my printers...

      And I get garbage display (bitmap fonts) on some computer display.

      PDF is certainly not perfect.

    9. Re:Kudos to them by Directrix1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Those are bugs in an implementation of a PDF viewer. They aren't bugs in the PDF standard.

      --
      Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
    10. Re:Kudos to them by Zebra1024 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Most word processors, like Microsoft Word, are created on the WYSIWYG principle. They are designed to show you on the screen how the document will look when it is printed. This is why the printer affects how the document is rendered to the screen.

    11. Re:Kudos to them by GospelHead821 · · Score: 1

      I wish to relate anecdotal evidence in support of the statements that c_fel has made. When I am interested in editing a document on my Win2K desktop computer and also on my Kubuntu laptop computer, I use an open document format. When I am interested in viewing or displaying a finished, "published" document, I convert it to a PDF. For example, this is how I maintained a consistent, polished appearance across documents when preparing my resume and cover letter for print.

      --
      Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
      Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
    12. Re:Kudos to them by oreilco · · Score: 0

      Mod parent up, printing is / has been key to how word processors work.

    13. Re:Kudos to them by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      But doesn't the computer tell the printer what the document should look like, and not the other way around? Adobe PDF documents look the same on every computer, when printed as well as on the screen, why should MS word be any different? If Adobe can ignore the printer and display the document the same everywhere, and print it out the same, why can't MS word do this?

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    14. Re:Kudos to them by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That is no longer the case, and even Microsoft has opened the standard (mostly) on their new Office data files.

      Microsoft's Office XML format is a half-hearted attempt to conform to standards. Really, it's another example of MS trying to hold onto their monopoly. Adobe is doing it the right way by fully opening the specification. From the initial evaluations of the MS proposal: Office XML specification is done in such a way that only MS can implement it.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    15. Re:Kudos to them by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      That doesn't matter. Short of some drastic differences on the order of 9-pin do matrix vs 1200dpi laser, there should be NO variances in what the final document looks like. The same document should look the same on all printers. If you need to include fonts in the doc then MS should have started doing that ~ 15 years ago.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    16. Re:Kudos to them by TheSkyIsPurple · · Score: 1

      Different printers have different limitations as to what their borders and such can be.
      How should you display a document that someone set to use 0.4" borders, but the printer won't take any less that 0.5"?

    17. Re:Kudos to them by Val314 · · Score: 1

      > PDF used to be the sole means to have a document look exactly the same across any platform.

      I've seen some PDFs (generated with LaTeX using the microtype package) that looked significantly different on several printers. Some just decided to ignore whole paragraphs, others just decided to print several words in bold. They all looked fine on the Monitor, but not printed

      So to sum up: No, PDFs do not look identically everywhere.

      (disabling microtype or using PCL instead of PostScript to print fixed those issues)

    18. Re:Kudos to them by cnettel · · Score: 1

      Because we all know how cheap and permissive (some) font licenses actually are.

    19. Re:Kudos to them by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      Display it with the information chopped off? I'm not really sure how Adobe handles this. Just display the information as if the printer could actually print at .4" borders, and then display a warning message when they try to print that lets them know that something will be cut off. I don't want my document changed just because I sent it to someone else who had a different printer than I do.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    20. Re:Kudos to them by hcdejong · · Score: 1

      FrameMaker shows that WYSIWYG can be done without the 'reformat the whole document every time you change printers' nonsense.
      I think part of the problem is that Word likes to use the fonts that have been installed in the printer, instead of the fonts that are present on the local computer. Stupidly, every printer seems to implement their own version of each font. Installing fonts on a printer hasn't been necessary since the bad old days of daisy wheels, but that's inertia for you.

    21. Re:Kudos to them by profplump · · Score: 1

      Display it with 0.4" borders and whine when you go to print to a printer that won't accept them, just like it does now.

    22. Re:Kudos to them by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Adobe PDF documents look the same on every computer, when printed as well as on the screen, why should MS word be any different? If Adobe can ignore the printer and display the document the same everywhere, and print it out the same, why can't MS word do this?

      Well, one answer is that PDF can not do that. For instance if you print the same document that runs to the very edge of the page on two printers, one with a 1/4" margin and one with a 1/8" margin, you have two options. You can scale it, or not. If you scale it, the documents will be different sizes. If you do not, different amounts of the document will be unprinted (they lie in that unprintable margin area.) PDF doesn't override the physical limitations of the output device, it works within them just like every other program.

      Another answer is that word is a big pile of crap.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    23. Re:Kudos to them by newt0311 · · Score: 1

      The first problem is that word processors are overcomplicated and try to take too importance on exactly how the document is rendered. The other problem is that people expect entirely too much from their word processor. It evolved from a point where the word processor file was just a flat text file with maybe a couple tags for making text appear a certian way, to a system where you can insert a movie into a document (you can't print the movie). The word processor tries to be the be-all-and-end-all of computer applications, and hence fails miserably. I would advise LaTeX or some similar text based system. works great for me.
    24. Re:Kudos to them by HeroreV · · Score: 1

      Can fonts not be embedded in OpenDocument files? That would be quite strange since the idea certainly isn't new. I've heard that Microsoft Office has been able to embed fonts for quite awhile.

    25. Re:Kudos to them by lahvak · · Score: 1

      The interesting thing about this is that if if you try this in word, it will not reformat the document. Instead, it tells you that part of the document is outside printable page, and offers you to cancel printing. If you print anyway, it will happily chop off parts of the text. Adobe reader, in comparison, will not warn you, but you can set it to either chop off the text, or to shrink the pages so they will fit into the margins. If you set it that way, some documents may come out slightly scaled down, but other than that, they will print on all printers the same.

      Device independence has been figured out decades ago, tex was able to produce dvi files that printed the same on wide variety of printers back in 1980's. Microsoft really has no excuse for this. To those who blame it on font licenses, explain me why this happens even if you only use very basic fonts that MS supplies with Windows. They have complete controll of the licenses here. Heck, they even "designed" that crappy arial, just so they wouldn't have to trouble themselves with licensing Helvetica.

      --
      AccountKiller
    26. Re:Kudos to them by spectecjr · · Score: 1

      MS word is notorious for looking different on different computers, even using the same version. Its a fact that two identical computers with identical versions of MS word, will render a document differently if they have different printers. Why is this? I can't understand the logic behind having the printer determining how a document looks. Why not just ignore the printer?

      The last (and first?) version of Office while performed layout based on the printer you had selected was Office 97. Since Office 2000, they've used a resolution-independent layout system, so changing printers doesn't change any of the layout details.

      In other words, you're about 8 years behind the times.

      --
      Coming soon - pyrogyra
    27. Re:Kudos to them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What I believe is the .pdf excels in porting the exactly same layout of a page between platforms and softwares, while Office files excel in porting the exact editable content. Their goals are simply not the same.

      You are describing PDF/A, not PDF. PDF/A is a set of restrictions which define a SUBSET of PDF documents which can be rendered accurately and portably. Most of the trouble comes from scalable fonts. PDF/A requires that compliant documents embed enough information, including the exact fonts themselves, required to portably render the document. In addition, it requires that the document contain enough information to allow the user to extract the textual data from the document in a region-appropriate encoding. Vanilla PDF imposes no such requirements.

    28. Re:Kudos to them by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      Maybe you're right. Maybe you're not. It doesn't matter. MS word still has problems rendering the same document the same way on different computers. Whether it's the printer or some other reason, the problem still exists. I don't know if they've fixed this in office 12, but as for Office 2003 (how many times are they going to change the version numbering?) The problem still occurs, where documents don't render the same on different computers.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    29. Re:Kudos to them by Haeleth · · Score: 1

      Can fonts not be embedded in OpenDocument files? That would be quite strange since the idea certainly isn't new. I've heard that Microsoft Office has been able to embed fonts for quite awhile.
      To a certain extent, yes, but an output format like PDF is strictly more capable than any word-processor format could ever be: you can do things like convert text to outlines (which is often the only legal way to embed a font that has a restrictive license), or use very aggressive subsetting to cut down the file size, neither of which would be particularly useful features in a document that the recipient wants to edit.
    30. Re:Kudos to them by Haeleth · · Score: 1

      Different printers have different limitations as to what their borders and such can be.
      How should you display a document that someone set to use 0.4" borders, but the printer won't take any less that 0.5"?
      On the monitor, of course. I've never worked in an office, however small, that had fewer than three printers available, all with different limitations, and in such a situation I damn well do not want my software trying to guess which one - if any - I'm planning to send a document to. It can complain about borders when I actually select a printer.
    31. Re:Kudos to them by Haeleth · · Score: 1

      Device independence has been figured out decades ago, tex was able to produce dvi files that printed the same on wide variety of printers back in 1980's.
      Apples and oranges. Word documents are like source code - editable, and consisting more of instructions than hard layout; and every version of Word introduces new features that affect that layout. DVI files are output-only - not designed to be editable, and consisting solely of instructions on exactly where to lay things out; and TeX has not changed, apart from bug fixes, since the 1980s. The two cases have so little in common that the very fact you consider them comparable merely betrays your ignorance.

      To those who blame it on font licenses, explain me why this happens even if you only use very basic fonts that MS supplies with Windows.
      Because a Word document is conceptually a text document with markup describing how the layout is to be performed, not a layout document in which every single dot and curve is positioned precisely on the page. (Oh, wait, you weren't talking to me. Oh well, I explained [it to] you anyway.)

      They have complete controll of the licenses here. Heck, they even "designed" that crappy arial, just so they wouldn't have to trouble themselves with licensing Helvetica.
      Er, no, actually they licensed Arial from Monotype, and had its metrics adjusted to be compatible with Helvetica's metrics precisely to improve cross-platform compatibility.

      (And Arial isn't "crappy". It's derivative and overused, but it's also well built, excellently hinted, and has an unusually extensive character set - and Helvetica was hardly a paragon of freshness and originality. If you want to get angry about a font Microsoft has bundled, get angry about Book Antiqua.)
    32. Re:Kudos to them by 75th+Trombone · · Score: 1

      If you want to get angry about a font Microsoft has bundled, get angry about

      Yes, yes, we've heard it a million times...

      Book Antiqua.

      Gibbehdeh-WHA? You finished that sentence with.... but not Com...

      I think I just had some kind of religious experience.

      --
      The United States of America: We do what we must because we can.
    33. Re:Kudos to them by lahvak · · Score: 1

      Apples and oranges. Word documents are like source code - editable, and consisting more of instructions than hard layout; and every version of Word introduces new features that affect that layout. DVI files are output-only - not designed to be editable, and consisting solely of instructions on exactly where to lay things out; and TeX has not changed, apart from bug fixes, since the 1980s. The two cases have so little in common that the very fact you consider them comparable merely betrays your ignorance.
      I was not comparing the two. I am perfectly aware of the difference between them. I have been a TeX user since 1980's and I still use TeX for nearly all of my typesetting needs. I was just merely pointing out that it is not as impossible to get a document to print on different printers without reformating as many people in this discussion imply. The reason Word changes formating every time you change your printer is not because it is impossible to do it otherwise, but because MS simply did not try to do it otherwise. It was never a priority for them.

      Because a Word document is conceptually a text document with markup describing how the layout is to be performed, not a layout document in which every single dot and curve is positioned precisely on the page.
      Exactly! However, that does not explain several things. First, if the document only contains the text and instructions how the layout is to be performed, why does word ask me to save a file after I printed it, even though I did not do any changes? Second, a TeX document is also just a text file with instruction describing how the layout is to be performed. Yet TeX manages to create the exact same layout every time, no matter what printer you use. Why can't Word do the same? Finally, it wouldn't actually matter very much to me, I sometimes use formats that are even more sensitive to things like size of a page etc, for example html. If the document is well structured, the actual page dimensions, line breaks etc should not matter most of the time. The problem is that Word makes it somehow very difficult to create well structured documents. Almost everybody I know does things like using tabs in place of indentation, braking lines in the midle of a paragraph, bunch of empty lines to create a space between paragraphs, and so on. The result looks fine on their screen, but once they change their printer, or give the document to someone else, it looks like garbage.

      Er, no, actually they licensed Arial from Monotype, and had its metrics adjusted to be compatible with Helvetica's metrics precisely to improve cross-platform compatibility.
      Yes, but they did it so they don't have to licence Helvetica.

      --
      AccountKiller
  7. Thanks Microsoft? by paugq · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Translation for mere mortals: Adobe is feeling the breath of Microsoft and its Metro. They are so scared to become the next Netscape they are trying to nil any reason people may have to use Microsoft's XPS.

    1. Re:Thanks Microsoft? by lseltzer · · Score: 1, Funny

      Can Adobe open up the spec like this and still threaten Microsoft legally for including a reader in Office 2007?

      A: Of course they can, the whole thing was hypocritical to begin with.

    2. Re:Thanks Microsoft? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are welcome :) We do alot of submissions of our specs for international standardisation. This is paying off and forcing our competitors to open up their specs. I for one am tired of half baked hacked up PDF tools, there would have been more tools for XPS due to the XPSDocument API's being documented and in the .Net 3.0 framework class libraries.

      This is a good thing, so dont diss it :) It not only keeps MSFT's specs open but also give you more choice by forcing competitors to open up theirs :) Win win IMHO :) Two can play ball, competitors want our specs open, fine, we want theirs open too :) Fair is fair :)

    3. Re:Thanks Microsoft? by aisaac · · Score: 1

      Metro is now called XPS The right comparison with XPS is Adobe's Mars Project.

  8. Open Standard != Open Source by penix1 · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    ... it demonstrates that open standards and open source strategies are really becoming a mainstream concept in the software industry.
    I see nothing of that. When they open source Photoshop then we will know they support open source strategies. Until then, they are simply taking the path of least resistance.

    B.
    --
    This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
    1. Re:Open Standard != Open Source by TheLinuxSRC · · Score: 2, Informative

      "When they open source Photoshop then we will know they support open source strategies.

      Actually, Adobe did not open source anything with this move. They opened up the specification for the file format for PDF files. This is still a great move because other companies can now support PDF in both directions (read and write) but it is not open sourcing Acrobat. The equivalent move with regard to Photoshop would be to open up the file specification for the Photoshop work files (some sort of PNGs I believe).

    2. Re:Open Standard != Open Source by dr.badass · · Score: 1

      They opened up the specification for the file format for PDF files.

      The specification has been open. The story is that they're submitting it to ISO, making it a standard. Previously only subsets of PDF have been standardized such as PDF/X (ISO 15930) and PDF/A (ISO 19005).

      This is still a great move because other companies can now support PDF in both directions (read and write)

      This has always been the case.

      --
      Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
  9. Flash SWF file specification not open by NearlyHeadless · · Score: 5, Informative
    You cannot download the Flash File Format (SWF) specification without agreeing to a license which forbids writing a flash interpreter.

    http://www.adobe.com/licensing/developer/fileforma t/faq/#item-1-8:

    Can I use the File Format Specification to create a SWF interpreter or player?

    No, the File Format Specification is provided for the specific purpose of enabling software applications to export to the Macromedia Flash File Format (SWF).

    1. Re:Flash SWF file specification not open by Qubit · · Score: 2, Informative
      I emailed Adobe recently to clarify their licensing of the Flash/SWF file formats. Here's an abreviated summary of the email conversation:
      (If people are interested, I can post the full messages somewhere)

      Me:

      Your licensing page[1] for the Flash and Flash Video file formats
      states that the license "does not permit the usage of the
      specification to create software which supports SWF file playback."

      Why does your license prohibit the creation of playback software?

      The reason I'm asking is that in April of 2002, in an article written
      by David Becker[2], it seemed clear that Macromedia was committed to
      making the Flash file formats be open file formats. In the article,
      "Kevin Lynch, chief software architect for Macromedia," stated that
      the Flash file format was open for all developers:
        "The file format has been open for years now, so people can build
      whatever software they like around it," Lynch said. "We feel it really
      needs to be open and to promote an ecosystem where people can build
      software on top of it...We believe that's the best way to keep the
      player successful and still provide access to developers."

      [1] http://www.adobe.com/licensing/developer/
      [2] http://www.zdnetindia.com/techzone/trends/stories/ 9,53742.html
      Jennifer Chang, Senior Program Manager for the Flash Player, responded:

      the short answer is: no, you still can't make playback software using
      our file format specifications. by making the file format open, our
      intent is to allow 3rd parties to make applications that output SWF and
      FLV. however, for optimal support and experience, SWFs and FLVs should
      play in adobe's flash player. we have no plans to open-source flash
      player itself. we rather like making it ourselves. :)
      So there it is -- Adobe does not (and will not) allow 3rd parties to use the documentation for SWF/FLV files to create decoders. Adobe's PDF file format may be open, but the Flash file formats are definitely not open.

      So that raises a few questions:
      1) Can reverse-engineering the file format give enough information to make a fully-featured flash decoder/player?
      2) Will Adobe try to stop such reverse-engineering efforts?
      3) Is it worth it to continue along the Flash route, or should supporters of Open Standards promote an alternate vector-based animation/movie format?
      --

      coding is life /* the rest is */
    2. Re:Flash SWF file specification not open by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just have someone else download it and post it somewhere online.

    3. Re:Flash SWF file specification not open by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      1) Can reverse-engineering the file format give enough information to make a fully-featured flash decoder/player? 2) Will Adobe try to stop such reverse-engineering efforts? 3) Is it worth it to continue along the Flash route, or should supporters of Open Standards promote an alternate vector-based animation/movie format?

      1) certainly, but is it worth it? 2) almost certainly, but the DMCA explicitly protects reverse-engineering for the purpose of interoperability. 3) Why support closed software? That seems like a horrible idea to me.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Flash SWF file specification not open by runderwo · · Score: 1

      by making the file format open, our intent is to allow 3rd parties to make applications that output SWF and FLV.
      OK.

      however, for optimal support and experience, SWFs and FLVs should
      play in adobe's flash player.
      OK.

      we have no plans to open-source flash
      player itself. we rather like making it ourselves. :)
      Non sequitur. Who asked them to open source the flash player? Typical obfuscation and evasion of the actual question.
    5. Re:Flash SWF file specification not open by Qubit · · Score: 2, Informative

      ...certainly, but is it worth it?...why support closed software? That seems like a horrible idea to me.
      I share your concern over supporting closed file formats and closed software, but Gnash is one of the 6 items that the Free Software Foundation has placed on their list of High Priority Free Software Projects!

      Like the proprietary MS-Word file formats, the Flash SWF and FLV formats have become so pervasive in our online world (viral animations, YouTube, Google Video, Albino Blacksheep, etc...) that the FSF realizes the importance of providing support in Free Software for reading these formats so that people who try* to run only Free Software do not miss out on this content.

      * I say "try" because there are always file formats I cannot open and online services that I cannot access using Free Software (although it seems to be less of a problem today, which is encouraging).
      --

      coding is life /* the rest is */
    6. Re:Flash SWF file specification not open by mjbkinx · · Score: 1

      So that raises a few questions:
      1) Can reverse-engineering the file format give enough information to make a fully-featured flash decoder/player?
      2) Will Adobe try to stop such reverse-engineering efforts?
      3) Is it worth it to continue along the Flash route, or should supporters of Open Standards promote an alternate vector-based animation/movie format?

      1) What is it you're missing? Google SWF spec and the first hit will be the specs without the restriction. It seems to be a copy of the original specs, though, so better stick with Alexis' reference. You could also read the sources of various tools, or the existing OS player. For the opcodes of the new VM, you could read the sources of a compiler or the VM itself.

      2) Apparently they didn't. Neither did they try to stop the OS streaming server.

      3) Both would make sense, depending on how you plan to use it. For the web, SWF will stay the king, IMHO. Users don't like installing additional plugins, but that wouldn't be a problem for standalone apps.
      The bigger problem is content creation, both for a new format and for SWF. There are very good OS tools for making SWFs already, but they are focussed on programmers. If you want to write code and maybe include some assets like graphics and fonts that you then use with it, I'd say you're better off with the OS tools. But for graphical work like animations or layout, there isn't really a way around Adobe products for professional work (just that you can do animations and layout without them doesn't mean your designer will consider it an efficient, comfortable workflow, and he's right). This is where work needs to be done. Better SVG import for the tools, or direct SWF output for Inkspace or even a specialized app.

    7. Re:Flash SWF file specification not open by mark-t · · Score: 1

      How do they enforce that, exactly?

    8. Re:Flash SWF file specification not open by bcrowell · · Score: 1
      Also:
      • The eula for the flash player says you can't modify it or reverse-engineer it, can't run it on a portable device.
      • The license of the Version 2 GUI components prevents you from using them unless you own the Flash IDE.
      All of this kind of stuff makes it extremely difficult for anyone else to implement a free flash toolchain in a way that's useful and convenient. For instance, if you use the open-source MTASC compiler instead of Adobe's compiler, you have to buy the Flash IDE anyway in order to get the Version 2 components, and then you have to apply patches to all the components to get them to work with MTASC (apparently because of the poor coding practices used in the components). There's also the problem that the audio and video codecs that Flash supports are all under patent; individual hackers in the U.S. may not be afraid of getting sued for downloading ffmpeg from an overseas server, for example, but it's actually a violation of the mpegla license if they distribute more than 100,000 copies (which I imagine they have).
  10. Right direction? by Annoymous+Cowherd · · Score: 0
    From the article:

    The system was unable to find the module you requested to edit (moduleID ). I've been professionally developing high end PDF document manipulator applications in Javascript for a year or two now, and this pretty much sums up the the Scripting API.

    Adobe needs to focus more on the users' requirements, and less on pigeonholing them into vague outlines of their vision.

  11. Tamarin by Enderandrew · · Score: 1

    http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/

    Please forgive my ignorance on the matter. I do recall reading the article earlier on how Adobe has released the code on the scripting portion of Flash to Mozilla, and how it created the Tamarin project.

    Is the scripting portion alone enough for Mozilla to have their own embedded fully-functional Flash player?

    Can we compile from source a 64-bit Flash player some day through this project?

    The Tamarin Project mentions Firefox 2, and as far as I can tell from reading the Firefox 2 features, it never made a new impact in the 2 release. Will this impact Firefox 3? When will it be implemented, and what exactly does it mean?

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    1. Re:Tamarin by SavedLinuXgeeK · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, Tamarin is essentially getting Flash's action script engine, whichis EMCA Script 3.0 (I think), and this meaning that Firefox's javascript engine will be able to be replaced (overhauled) with the onen from Flash. The action script engine in flash is much faster and more robust than the one in Firefox currently.

      --
      je suis parce que j'aime
    2. Re:Tamarin by Enderandrew · · Score: 1

      Thanks. That's what I thought, but the parent article seemed to suggest that Adobe had opened sourced Flash. And it is version 4 of the scripting language.

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    3. Re:Tamarin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Is the scripting portion alone enough for Mozilla to have their own embedded fully-functional Flash player?

      No, definately not.

      What it means is a lot closer to a better/alternative version of javascript.

      The mentions of Flash are misleading and largely irrelevant, but Actionscript happens to be used in the Flash Player.

    4. Re:Tamarin by appavi · · Score: 1

      The Tamarin Project mentions Firefox 2, and as far as I can tell from reading the Firefox 2 features, it never made a new impact in the 2 release. Will this impact Firefox 3? When will it be implemented, and what exactly does it mean?
      It is Mozilla 2 not Firefox 2. All the Mozilla products like Firefox, Thunderbird uses Gecko engine underneath. Firefox 2 is based on Gecko engine 1.8.1 and Firefox 3 will be based on Gecko engine 1.9. Mozilla 2 is the major change to the underlying Gecko engine which will be used by Firefox future versions after Firefox 3.

      More about Mozilla 2
      http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/20 06/10/mozilla_2.html
      http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/20 06/11/project_tamarin.html
  12. Not already a standard by dotancohen · · Score: 0, Insightful

    PDF was never a standard in the sense of the word that one was encouraged to use it. Only open standards meet that requirement.

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
    1. Re:Not already a standard by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1
      There are a lot of definitions of 'standard,' but I think PDF should qualify, since it met the following requirements:
      1. Defined by a specification, not an implementation.
      2. The specification is free for download.
      3. The specification is unencumbered, and can be used for any purpose.
      I could also add 'more than one compatible implementation exists' to the list. With this announcement, Adobe have added 'controlled by a standards body' to the list. This is quite important, but it only effects future versions of the standard, not the current ones, so it doesn't have immediate effect.
      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  13. Re:How to resize PDF ? by UtucXul · · Score: 2, Informative

    PDF is fine for what is was designed for: creating print documents. But I hate pdf when reading it on the screen as it won't fit my window width: either you have to scroll back and forth every line or the characters are too small to read. Is there any app that can 'uncompile' a pdf and fit it on a screen width ? Might be a great app for reading docs on a laptop/pda/cell phone.
    pdftotxt

    pdftohtml
    or
    pdftk
    The last one is more to let you edit a pdf, but they are all really useful when dealing with pdf file.
  14. Pet Peeve by Guppy06 · · Score: 1

    "International Standards Organization (ISO)"

    Intertional Organization for Standardization

    1. Re:Pet Peeve by bazorg · · Score: 0

      haha!

    2. Re:Pet Peeve by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fine, from now on I'll call it the "Intertional Organization for Standards." I'll faithfully misspell "International" just for you.

    3. Re:Pet Peeve by nuzak · · Score: 1

      International Of Pancakes House

      --
      Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
  15. "Standard du jure" [sic]? by gblues · · Score: 4, Informative

    1) I think you mean "du jour"
    2) <IndigoMantoya>I don't think "du jour" means what you think it means.</IndigoMantoya>

    "du jour" simply means "of the day" ("soup du jour" => "soup of the day"). I really don't think you intended to claim that becoming the standard of the day is a good thing. I think saying, "PDF will transition from a de facto standard to an official one" would have been clearer, more succinct, and still gotten your intended point across.

    Nathan

    1. Re:"Standard du jure" [sic]? by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      "Standard de jure" means an official standard, such as ODF, whereas "Standard de facto" means a practically widely adopted format such as Word DOC.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    2. Re:"Standard du jure" [sic]? by Idaho · · Score: 4, Informative

      1) I think you mean "du jour"
      2) I don't think "du jour" means what you think it means.
      He actually meant "de jure", not "du jure", which indeed doesn't make much sense.

      From wikipedia:

      De jure (in Classical Latin de iure) is an expression that means "based on law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "in fact".
      source

      So what he was actually trying to say is not supposed to be French (although French, being a roman language, is indeed similar to Latin).
      --
      Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
    3. Re:"Standard du jure" [sic]? by Bob-taro · · Score: 1

      And more importantly, it's "Inigo Montoya", not "Indigo". Sheesh!

      --
      Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
    4. Re:"Standard du jure" [sic]? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most probably he meant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_iure

    5. Re:"Standard du jure" [sic]? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And not "Mantoya".

    6. Re:"Standard du jure" [sic]? by sconeu · · Score: 1

      Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You misspelled my name. Prepare to die.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    7. Re:"Standard du jure" [sic]? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would be more accurate: Íñigo Montoya,
      thus I could understand that neither your keyboards nor William Goldman's typewriter have some exotic spanish characters.

    8. Re:"Standard du jure" [sic]? by zsau · · Score: 1

      And, being Latin and not French, you pronounce it as if it was English, so it rhymes with "the jury" (three syllables), not at all like "de jour" (two syllables). A confusing pair of words, but once you know everything there is about them, they keep themselves well apart.

      --
      Look out!
    9. Re:"Standard du jure" [sic]? by glwtta · · Score: 1

      although French, being a roman language, is indeed similar to Latin

      Latin is the only Roman language, you are thinking of Romance language.

      --
      sic transit gloria mundi
  16. Nitpick alert! by DudeTheMath · · Score: 1

    So is that a standard du jour, or a de jure standard?

    --
    You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
    1. Re:Nitpick alert! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Worst case, your still stuck at the signal and he pulls up behind you...

      No, the worst case is you end up wrapping your car around a lamppost because you didn't have enough time to stop because you were driving too goddamn fast. Would you give up 10 minutes a day to extend your life 30 years? Would you give up 10 minutes a day to extend the life of your 6-year-old daughter 80 years?

    2. Re:Nitpick alert! by paving-slab · · Score: 1

      Your quite right. Better still, travel at 55 rather than 65. But then 45 would be even safer - though not as safe as 35, of course. Mind you, 25 would allow you to stop sooner in an emergency, if not as quickly as 15, while 5 should enable you to avoid almost all accidents in the first place.

    3. Re:Nitpick alert! by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      That's assuming your an idiot who doesn't know when it's safe to drive fast and when it's not.
      What's so unsafe about driving fast down a straight and wide highway where there's little or no other traffic? Surely going down that highway at 90mph is safer than travelling down a crowded road at 55.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
  17. Great news, but not necessarily a free-for-all by The+Empiricist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It is wonderful to hear that the PDF specification will be the subject of open standardization. Caution should be exercised when implementing products though. Almost 400 patents have been granted to Adobe. Adobe has another 50 patent applications in process. There may also be additional patents that have been assigned to Adobe or that Adobe has an exclusive license to practice. Adobe may also have intellectual property in foreign markets that are greater in scope than what Adobe has in the United States.

    Caution should be exercised because ISO does not require that its standards be patent-free. Necessary patents merely must be available on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. Adobe (or anyone else really) may also seek patents on how PDFs are used, manipulated, etc.

    This doesn't necessarily mean that Adobe is bad or that any Open Source Software projects will ever face any obstacles from Adobe. It simply means that some care should be taken to determine whether any of Adobe's patents cover features of the PDF standard or its uses, especially when developing software that mimics an existing proprietary product. If there is a question, then OSS developers should contact Adobe to try to get a license (perhaps for the consideration of a promise that the resulting product remain open source).

    1. Re:Great news, but not necessarily a free-for-all by SMQ · · Score: 1

      While caution is still warranted, it looks like Adobe indeed intends to foster open development. From the current PDF Reference section 1.4:

      Adobe Systems Incorporated and its subsidiaries own a number of patents covering technology disclosed in the PDF Reference. [...] Nonetheless, Adobe desires to encourage implementation of the PDF computer file format on a wide variety of devices and platforms, and for this reason offers certain royalty-free patent licenses to PDF implementors worldwide. To review those licenses, please visit http://www.adobe.com/go/developer_legalnotices.

      Of course a question remains of what other possibly relevant patents Adobe holds but is not licensing under those terms...

      --
      SMQ 90AE4B2BC4F6BEAF7340F0B40BA2DEF7340F6BC2D0392
    2. Re:Great news, but not necessarily a free-for-all by bcrowell · · Score: 1

      PDF is a huge, incredibly complicated spec. However, 99% of documents only need 1% of the features. Realistically, if there's a risk due to patents, it's with some of the more obscure features. There are already tons of OSS apps that implement quite a large subset of pdf, both for writing and reading (e.g., pdftex, xpdf, ghostscript, pdftk, pdfripimage, pdftotext, pdfimages, pdfinfo, pdffonts, pdftoppm, ...), and many of them are high-profile projects that have been vetted thoroughly for patent issues. (IIRC, pdftex eliminated support for encryption, but it wasn't because of patents, it was simply because it was a hassle to maintain it, very few pdftex users wanted the feature, and in any case you can do encryption as a separate step using pdftk.)

  18. Go Open and Win! by BillGatesLoveChild · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Adobe have deservedly copped criticism over the years, but one great thing they've shown by example is that if you *do* let go out of specs (as they did with PDF), you can still be a viable business. More than viable. Adobe is still the #1 name in PDF/PS, but they do so alongside competitors (GhostScript/View and the zillion PDF generation tools). Yet Adobe is still making money.

    Compare that to Sun with Java. Sun just wouldn't let go, so it never got beyond being just another product that competitors had to *take down!* One of those was Microsoft, but they themselves made the same mistake with Microsoft Word. Remember how DOC files used to be the "standard" (cough) for distributing documents on the web? Now it's all either PDF or HTML. If MS had let go, maybe, people would have used that?** In the long run, when we're talking about data which *needs* to be interchangable and not tied to one software vendor, an open spec will win. Especially a better one! (PDFs look the same. Word DOCs don't!)

    (Reading this and feeling good Adobe? *great*. Now please head on over to Joel and learn about user interface design http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0 000000057.html Beyond [PageUp/PageDown], Adobe Reader's interface is very badly designed. The preferences make me weep and why can't I bookmark a la Visual Studio? And please stop trying to stuff every scripting concept known to humanity into the PDF spec, because all you're doing is turning PDF into the ultimate Trojan vector! Had to get that off my chest...)

    Anyway, PDF and PS still rock and I'm glad they won!

    ** = Yes, Microsoft did make a feint with their Office XML, but everyone recognizes it for the debacle it is. Sorry Dad! ;-)

    1. Re:Go Open and Win! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sorry, I know this is /, and Java isn't one of the chosen ones, but this kind of nonsense FUDing really gets me irritated.

      Sun hasn't has control over Java since they started the JCP process in 1998. (OK strictly they do have a power of veto in that process but I don't believe they have ever used it). The spec for Java, the language, has been available since Java came into being, as has the spec for the JVM. The source code for Java has been available to download for years. More recently Sun has adopted GPL for Java and is gradually releasing it under GPL (process to complete this year).

      The only competitor that wanted to take Java down was Microsoft, and that is because they feared for their Windows franchise if a platform independent language took off and for no other reason. In fact if you look at the vendors organizations who do support Java, among them Apache Software Foundation, Oracle, SAS, Siemens, Sybase, BEA, Borland, Google, Nokia, TIBCO, IBM, Red Hat, Novell) you'll find that almost all of Sun's competitors in fact do use and contribute to Java. The fact that Java continues to be so successful is testament to Microsoft's failure.

    2. Re:Go Open and Win! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only competitor that wanted to take Java down was Microsoft, and that is because they feared for their Windows franchise if a platform independent language took off and for no other reason. In fact if you look at the vendors organizations who do support Java, among them Apache Software Foundation, Oracle, SAS, Siemens, Sybase, BEA, Borland, Google, Nokia, TIBCO, IBM, Red Hat, Novell) you'll find that almost all of Sun's competitors in fact do use and contribute to Java. The fact that Java continues to be so successful is testament to Microsoft's failure.

      Although amusingly, IBM did pretty much what Microsoft did when they released Eclipse.

  19. Not "open". by ear1grey · · Score: 1

    If Adobe throws in the towel and uses any other open document format, then they have to write off a lot of their marketable PDF technical skillset. Instead, playing the open-source benefactor is the next logical step.

    This therefore does not necessarily "reinforce Adobe's commitment to open standards", it merely illustrates that it is no longer cost effective for Adobe to continue to maintain the PDF format in house.

    Also, open-sourcing a mature proprietary format such as PDF (which has been driven by a single company's objectives) may divert attention from other open standards that have been developed from scratch by consensus, so it's not without it's potential downside.

    1. Re:Not "open". by WhiteWolf666 · · Score: 1

      I'm not aware of an FLOSS PDF replacements. ODF doesn't count.

      --
      WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
    2. Re:Not "open". by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      This therefore does not necessarily "reinforce Adobe's commitment to open standards", it merely illustrates that it is no longer cost effective for Adobe to continue to maintain the PDF format in house.

      Adobe released PostScript as an open specification from the start. They made their money selling a PostScript interpreter for printers. Anyone could implement their own, however. This back-fired for them in some of the later versions, where they released the specification too early and their competitors release implementations first.

      They released PDF because PostScript had some issues. It was Turing-complete, so a PostScript program could potentially never terminate. It also didn't contain any way of storing document semantics, which made it a problem for on-screen viewing (copying text, for example, was non-trivial). PDF was, like PostScript, available for download for free with no limitations on what it could be used for from the start. There are now a large number of applications that display and generate PDF. A large proportion of my workflow is PDF-based, and I don't use any Adobe products.

      Also, open-sourcing a mature proprietary format such as PDF (which has been driven by a single company's objectives) may divert attention from other open standards that have been developed from scratch by consensus, so it's not without it's potential downside.

      The only competitor to PDF is XPS, which is developed by Microsoft. Do you honestly believe that a 'standard' designed by Microsoft is going to be better than one that already has an active ecosystem around it?

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    3. Re:Not "open". by MrP-(at+work) · · Score: 1

      "so a PostScript program could potentially never terminate"

      So... like Adobe Acrobat Reader?

      --
      [an error occurred while processing this directive]
    4. Re:Not "open". by twistedcubic · · Score: 1

      DVI, for those who have the fonts, which you would if you were trying to read a DVI in your field. File size is 1/100 of any competing format. DVI can be converteed to ANY other appropriate format, and the conversion from DVI to any other format is mind-boggling fast. Go to arxiv.org and be enlightened.

    5. Re:Not "open". by zsau · · Score: 1

      No, by "PostScript program", the Raven was referring to a program written in PostScript, i.e. blah.ps, not a program which interprets them. You could send a file to a printer which has an infinite loop in it and it would not stop.

      --
      Look out!
  20. Re:Oh dear God. by penix1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I like plain text or html files much better, they are far more efficient, reliable and compatible.
    Plain text and HTML are far from "compatible". You lose formatting, layout, and readibility not to mention that those formats don't print very well. Another thing that you lose is the permanence of it. I can scan a signed document into PDF and be assured it will stay the same. The only wat to achieve that is to use HTML (a 50% reduction in your choices right off the bat) and scan it as an image.

    B.
    --
    This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
  21. Good guy or just competition? by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Look Adobe for the longest time has fought making this open. Like many companies, they when a real competitor to their control comes along, then and only then will they open up. Java is a good example.

    The one thing that I will give Adobe credit for is that they are at least doing it early enough so that it can make a real difference. As it is (was), most companies wait until they have no choice before doing so. Java is a good example of that. I think that had Java gone true OSS at least 6-7 years ago, sun would be in major control and Java would be unstoppable. As it is, Java is decaying as a number of the projects move to C#/mono (I am a C/C++/perl type guy).

    Who knows, since more companies are jumping on the OSS AND still making money on the items, this is force others to move to true OSS. I have noticed that when I have been interviewing amongst big companies (first time a quite a while), that many now want to see my source code and they are moving a number of their projects to OSS code.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  22. Re:The rol of GTK+ by Bert64 · · Score: 1

    This has very little to do with adobe's pdf reader (which is one of the worst). Why not use kpdf, that uses qt and works considerably better. PDF being an open standard means that there are plenty of programs which support it.

    --
    http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
  23. You pretentious jackass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > 1) I think you mean "du jour"

    They really dont

    > "du jour" simply means "of the day" ("soup du jour" => "soup of the day").

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_jure

    Firstly it is Latin not French and it means "by law" not "of the day"

    check your facts you condescending schmuck, or read a book once in a while

    hand your geek card in at the desk and dont let the door hit you on the way out

    1. Re:You pretentious jackass by alienmole · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, it was gblues, a commenter about three levels up from this comment, who said "I think you mean 'du jour'". You can stop talking in bold font now.

  24. Other apps can edit PDFs now? by i_should_be_working · · Score: 1

    So I know lots of apps can print to pdf. But the only app I've seen that can open up an existing pdf and change it is Adobe's writer.

    Anyone know if other apps will be able to do this now? Or if some already do? I've heard of pdftk, but it doesn't seem to actually edit the content itself.

    1. Re:Other apps can edit PDFs now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think releasing the standard to ISO will make much difference to this. The existing standard doesn't really restrict what programs you're allowed to write.

    2. Re:Other apps can edit PDFs now? by Noksagt · · Score: 3, Informative
      There are a lot of ways to edit PDFs. Sometimes it is worth converting to postscript, as you'll have even more tools. The tools below are free/open source and run on Linux. Most also work on other operating systems. If you are willing to take a proprietary solution, there are even more options:
    3. Re:Other apps can edit PDFs now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      kword

    4. Re:Other apps can edit PDFs now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey thanks! I'll check them out.

    5. Re:Other apps can edit PDFs now? by i_should_be_working · · Score: 1

      Thanks, I even use some of those now, obviously not very extensively.

      But I just tried KWord for the first time and, holy crap, that thing is great. Now I have to resist another temptation to switch to KDE.

    6. Re:Other apps can edit PDFs now? by twistedcubic · · Score: 1
  25. Well... by Zebra_X · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I know that I can print to XPS right now, but I can't print to PDF without paying 300 bones (standard edition) or 449 (professional).

    It's not that people don't think of PDF as a standard - it's that it's insanely expensive to have as a "feature".

    I mean seriously, think about it - you can buy a "normal" version of Office for the price of being able to export your documents to a PDF. Arguably the utility of Office applications is significantly higher than the ability to ship PDF's around.

    It is also very clear from Adobe's pricing that they have you by the balls. Distiller isn't worth that much.

    Not only do the creators of PDF's get screwed, the reader software (up until the latest version) has sucked hard. It had a tendency to stay open and use copious amounts of RAM even whenthere were no PDF docs being viewed. Performance wasn't really what they were after either and the ads in Reader were pretty awful too.

    There is no reason that it needs to cost so much to create non-editable documents.

    1. Re:Well... by codepunk · · Score: 1

      Guess you need to hire a better network administrator or switch to a decent office suite. OO can export to pdf out of the box, a good network administrator can set up a linux powered network pdf printer..total cost of both of those solutions "zero".

      --


      Got Code?
    2. Re:Well... by ettlz · · Score: 5, Informative

      There is no reason that it needs to cost so much to create non-editable documents.

      Quite, which is why things like PDFCreator exist.

    3. Re:Well... by jalefkowit · · Score: 1, Redundant

      I know that I can print to XPS right now, but I can't print to PDF without paying 300 bones (standard edition) or 449 (professional).

      Let me introduce you to PDFCreator -- free, open source printing to PDF. If you want to create interactive forms and such, the Adobe software is worth the money; but for simple PDF printing, all you need is PDFCreator. (Or OpenOffice, for that matter, which has "Save to PDF" built in.)

    4. Re:Well... by Noksagt · · Score: 1

      I know that I can print to XPS right now, but I can't print to PDF without paying 300 bones (standard edition) or 449 (professional).
      As others have pointed out, there is third party software to create PDFs for free on all platforms. What I haven't seen are many tools to process XPS documents on non-windows platforms (or even on "legacy" windows). There is an open source XPS to PDF converter, but I know of no current way to create an XPS document without using Windows.

      I mean seriously, think about it - you can buy a "normal" version of Office for the price of being able to export your documents to a PDF.
      And, if you buy MS Office, you will be able to download a PDF/XPS export plugi from Microsoft for free.

      Not only do the creators of PDF's get screwed, the reader software (up until the latest version) has sucked hard. It had a tendency to stay open and use copious amounts of RAM even whenthere were no PDF docs being viewed.
      As you said, Adobe's current version doesn't suffer these problems. There are also plenty of third party viewers & Adobe's viewer works on Windows, OS X, and Linux. This isn't the case for XPS.
    5. Re:Well... by Megane · · Score: 1

      I know that I can print to XPS right now, but I can't print to PDF without paying 300 bones (standard edition) or 449 (professional).

      The maybe you should try Mac OS X. There's been a "save as PDF" button right there in the print dialog since 10.0.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    6. Re:Well... by sydneyfong · · Score: 1

      I have a rather "complicated" set up, but it mostly works:

      I set up 'redmon'*, add a postscript printer from the windows printer drivers database, and redirect the output to ghostscript which has a ps2pdf utility.

      * http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/redmon/

      --
      Don't quote me on this.
    7. Re:Well... by MooUK · · Score: 1

      You're doing things the very hard way.

      There's plugins available for some versions of office, freely, that will print to PDF. There are multiple PDF printers for windows (CutePDF is popular, and (this surprised me at first) installed on all my uni's computers), and free PDF creation programs all over the place. Hell, pdflatex creates PDFs with much better results than you'd get out of a word document.

      As with the grandparent, there's many better ways of doing things, in most cases, than the way you've chosen.

      On the other hand, if it works for you then great - but you might find it worth trying something else.

    8. Re:Well... by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I know that I can print to XPS right now, but I can't print to PDF without paying 300 bones (standard edition) or 449 (professional).

      There are a coupe of things to note in this. With PDF there are lots of free tools to read and write PDFs, as well as a lot of closed tools. With XPS, there is only Microsoft. You claim you have to pay for PDF generation tools, but that is only because you're only considering offerings from one vendor. Worse yet you assume you have not paid for XPS generation tools, when in fact the cost of them is rolled into Windows Vista and MS Office. Even if you don't want XPS and would rather use PDF, you still have to pay if you buy either of these products.

      Not only do the creators of PDF's get screwed, the reader software (up until the latest version) has sucked hard.

      Yeah, if you only look at one tool, it might be a bad one. So you think it would be better to move to a market where there is only one company that can create said tools, instead of the situation we have now where there are numerous companies creating tools both free and for sale? I suppose if you never look at any other tools, it doesn't matter to you much, huh?

      My desktop system is OS X. It has a built in PDF reader that is simple and fast. It can quickly generate PDFs from pretty much any application. MS could have done the same thing with Windows, but they did not. Instead they went with XPS, their own, proprietary, closed competitor. Do you really think that is going to benefit you in the long run?

    9. Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well I know that's the hard way. The thing was set up on one of my winxp machines more than two years ago, and at that time there probably weren't as many options as there are now. (or maybe I didn't try as hard ;-p)

    10. Re:Well... by MooUK · · Score: 1

      I believe CutePDF has been around for considerably longer than 2 years, although how public it was then I do not recall. I do believe that OpenOffice has had PDF output available for much longer than that, though.

      I may be wrong. I often am.

    11. Re:Well... by twistedcubic · · Score: 1


      There is no reason that it needs to cost so much to create non-editable documents.

      It doesn't. pdflatex is free.

    12. Re:Well... by bcrowell · · Score: 1

      I know that I can print to XPS right now, but I can't print to PDF without paying 300 bones (standard edition) or 449 (professional).
      I've been creating PDF files for a decade using nothing but OSS.

      It is also very clear from Adobe's pricing that they have you by the balls. Distiller isn't worth that much.
      Ghostscript is OSS, and can convert ps to pdf, just like distiller.

      Not only do the creators of PDF's get screwed, the reader software (up until the latest version) has sucked hard.
      So why do you use Adobe Reader if you don't like Adobe Reader? I have xpdf set up as my default pdf viewer in Firefox, and it's very snappy.

      There is no reason that it needs to cost so much to create non-editable documents.
      By your logic, we should all frown on C because C compiled to machine code, which is hard to edit. If you want to write open-source software using C, you can distribute the source code as well as the object code. Same thing with PDF. E.g., I've written some CC-licensed books for which I make the pdftex source code available.

  26. ISO Can Be Good PDF PR by blueZhift · · Score: 1

    While many here already know that PDF has been an open format for a number of years, that knowledge may not be held by all in the development business. Becoming an ISO standard will be very good PR for Adobe and PDF and will go a long time towards reaching developers who didn't know it was an open standard before. If will also be good for those who have PHBs that insist that everything have the right set of acronyms associated with it!

    1. Re:ISO Can Be Good PDF PR by spectecjr · · Score: 1

      While many here already know that PDF has been an open format for a number of years, that knowledge may not be held by all in the development business.

      How can it be an open format if Adobe can prevent Microsoft from allowing people to Save As... PDF in Office 2007?

      --
      Coming soon - pyrogyra
  27. Web 3.0 = PDF websites by Peter+Bonte · · Score: 1

    Is this the next logical step?

    1. Re:Web 3.0 = PDF websites by joshetc · · Score: 1

      If it does I'm killing myself. There is nothing html + images can't do that PDF can.

    2. Re:Web 3.0 = PDF websites by Peter+Bonte · · Score: 1

      Content protection is one big 'advantage' i can think of, perfect print being another. Lets not forget security, easy web-creation, true multi platform (OS's and future PDA's) and i'm sure the development won't stop here. Sometimes half of the results i get in Google are PDF's so all we need is a WYSIWYG PDF webpage creator and browser support. Not that i'm overly exited about it but being a Mac user myself i sure like the multi platform feature.

    3. Re:Web 3.0 = PDF websites by joshetc · · Score: 1

      Use an image for content you dont want "copied". Provides just as much protection as PDF. Also, what common platforms dont support HTML and JPEGs?

      Not to mention you can force the page to take up as much room as you want, or have it automatically resize to fit the screen at your choosing. Meaning if you WANT to force everything to look the same on any browser you can, you dont HAVE to though as with PDFs.

      Then theres less reader overhead (as far as system resources) and the fact that HTML is completely open allowing anyone to have as much control as everyone else (no $400 PDF creators) HTML files can be read on FAR more systems than PDFs at the moment... including PDAs / Cell Phones NOW.. my Dreamcast, or any computer I've used in the last 15 years.

    4. Re:Web 3.0 = PDF websites by Peter+Bonte · · Score: 1

      I'm talking iPhone naturally, all other PDA/phones are practically useless for normal sized webpages and the iPhone can do both very well. A browser is as much a reader as Acrobat it all depends on what they do on a site, PDF just isn't optimized for the web yet and in the near future net speed and processor power won't be much of an issue anymore. PDF is indeed bigger and demands more system resources but that can change if you add in java and other plugins into HTML to make something work, i'm sure it will become an extra valuable option for website creation.

    5. Re:Web 3.0 = PDF websites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good god I hope not.

      One of the original design goals of the Web (so often lost on today's WYSIWYG-mired web designers) was display adaptability--the exact layout of the content would change the best match the capabilities and characteristics of the viewing device. This is exactly opposite of what PDF is trying to do--the exact layout of the content is unchanged by the capabilities and characteristics of the viewing device.

      Ever visited a website which was too wide for your browser? Annoying, huh? With PDF the situation would be immeasurably worse: designers would have to decide a priori what "size" the "optimal" browser should be, and format the document to it. If your browser doesn't match (how many screen resolutions are popular these days, even disregarding things like PDAs and smart-phones?), welcome to scrolling hell.

      PDF is useful for many things, but website layout is not one of them.

  28. Obligatory grammar flame by 1u3hr · · Score: 2, Informative

    "PDF has reached a point in it's maturity cycle"

    It's == It is. Its == possessive.

    "a full blown du jure standard"

    Either [soup] "du jour" or [practices] "de jure"?

    Can't tell who's responsible for this, the linked page is Slashdotted.

  29. Hey Adobe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I appreciate what you've done with your source libraries and tamarin, I'm also grateful for the existence of PDF. I don't see why we need javascript or 3D in PDF documents and I hope you're not thinking of putting flash in there as well. If we wanted documents to be code we'd all be using postscript wouldn't we?

  30. It's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >PDF has reached a point in it's maturity cycle...

    It's its, not it's.

  31. Is this really the entire spec? by jonwil · · Score: 1

    Does it include the features for protecting a PDF from being altered/read without the right password or whatever it is (the ones that Russian guy was arrested for).
    What about the features that deal with applying black bars over text (can we build a PDF reader that completely ignores such data and see all the text that whoever did the obscuring thought was no longer readable?)

    1. Re:Is this really the entire spec? by WWWWolf · · Score: 1

      Does it include the features for protecting a PDF from being altered/read without the right password or whatever it is (the ones that Russian guy was arrested for).

      I suppose it contains description of the framework and description of how to identify and handle encrypted data. (as in "Here's some binary crap, it's stored with the method X with key Y. Just proceed as usual once you decrypt it.") I don't think it contains instructions for each and every DRM method, of course - after all, no one has so far come up with a DRM method that could be openly specified and not trivially crackable because everyone knows how to get the key...

      What about the features that deal with applying black bars over text (can we build a PDF reader that completely ignores such data and see all the text that whoever did the obscuring thought was no longer readable?)

      PDF supports "draw text here" and "draw black box here", and has never advertised anything but. If people use that for redaction, they deserve everything they get. Protecting people from the stupidity of the users has never been Adobe's job (or any standard body's job either), they trust that people have at least half a clue =)

    2. Re:Is this really the entire spec? by Megane · · Score: 1

      What about the features that deal with applying black bars over text (can we build a PDF reader that completely ignores such data and see all the text that whoever did the obscuring thought was no longer readable?)

      Those are simply rectangles dropped over the text, either printed by the word processor or added manually with a PDF editor. I'm pretty sure there isn't a specific "redacted" feature in PDF.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    3. Re:Is this really the entire spec? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually Acrobat 8 Pro has indeed a proper redaction tool. Not as extensive as the redax plugin, but a good start to allow proper redaction instead of just covering up.

  32. CutePDF by Krischi · · Score: 1

    What's wrong with CutePDF?

  33. Re:Oh dear God. by Dik+Zak · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yes, a 100 MB application to read text seems a bit much. I use Foxit Reader. Just 2 MB, very fast.

  34. Re:How to resize PDF ? by value_added · · Score: 2

    Is there any app that can 'uncompile' a pdf and fit it on a screen width?

    No, technical discussions of the format aside.

    As an end user, it would help if you consider the format a FINAL format (for viewing, printing, distribution, etc.), and treat the authoring of it as entirely separate. It's really quite obvious, but the modern widespread use of wordprocessing software (which typically combines the two separate steps in an unholy but manageable mess) has led to the confusion. Put another way, your question comes up frequently.

    By contrast, those accustomed to separating the two steps (editing text and adding markup, on the one hand, and generating output as postscript, PDF, HTML, formatted text such as man pages, etc., on other), never ask the question and typically scratch their heads when they see it asked. PDFs are typically generated into letter and A4 sizes. Reading them on screen isn't ideal, agreed, but it's unlikely there will ever be a big push for everyone to provide 6x9 or smaller versions. Perhaps one day in the future when screen technology improves and becomes widespread, but not now.

    You consolation prize is that you can, with little trouble, extract the text from a PDF. You can use that to re-author a new PDF, or read it as is. But that brings you back full circle to "plain text", doesn't it? The tangential lesson here is there is a reason why *nix users continue to insist on using the command line, and spend much of their time mucking about with text files, and the rest of it arguing about text editors. Text (ascii, if you will), is the lowest common denominator for people and computers. The two get along quite nicely. You could say that processing text is what it's all about. Oddly, enough, computer programs are written in text, and their output is often more text. ;-)

    There is a book called Unix Text Processing (written by Dale Dougherty and Tim O'Reilly) that was first published in 1987. To a large degree, it's as relevant and useful today as it was back then, years before Microsoft released Windows 95 to the world. If you buy a copy on amazon.com (for under $2.00, typically), you can learn how to make your own PDFs and never have to ask the question again.

  35. Great news! by LWGLIN · · Score: 1

    This is great news!

    Now I won't have to start endless discussions with people not liking PDF because it is 'proprietary', an argument that IMHO made no sense because Adobe has always allowed developers to use the PDF Reference as described in section 1.4 of the PDF Reference.

    The only downside: I have just published a book about PDF saying PDF is a de facto standard as opposed to the ISO standards PDF/X and PDF/A (read the third chapter that is available for free). If I had known this was coming, I could have asked to wait for a month and a half before printing it ;-)

    1. Re:Great news! by spectecjr · · Score: 1

      Now I won't have to start endless discussions with people not liking PDF because it is 'proprietary', an argument that IMHO made no sense because Adobe has always allowed developers to use the PDF Reference as described in section 1.4 of the PDF Reference.

      You might want to talk to Microsoft about whether or not PDF was a proprietary format. After all, Adobe sued them to stop them from exporting PDF files from Word 2007.

      --
      Coming soon - pyrogyra
    2. Re:Great news! by LWGLIN · · Score: 1

      The (threat of a) law-suit against Microsoft had nothing to do with IP, everything with anti-trust. This discussion has been held before.

  36. Re:How to resize PDF ? by tcopeland · · Score: 1

    > Text (ascii, if you will), is the lowest
    > common denominator for people and computers.

    So true. Although I'd even add the HTML Unicode escapes to that definition of text. I'm working on a JavaCC book right now and writing it in DocBook, and you can easily do Unicode characters with the hex encoding. For example, ü (or U+00FC) is &#x00FC;. DocBook handles this just fine, the PDF output looks good, and so the book can use accented characters and such when appropriate.

  37. The submitter talks like... by gregorio · · Score: 1

    ...the Open Source invented the standardization process. At least that what is seems to me when I read "but it demonstrates that open standards and open source strategies are really becoming a mainstream concept in the software industry" at an Open-Source-directed site like Slashdot.

    Sorry to break your heart, folks, but that's like saying Open Source invented ISO / ANSI / IEEE / etc. A.k.a.: nonsense. The process of open industry standards predates the open source community.

    I know that the Open Source community is important and all, but pretending that it invented the whole process of openness is plain silly. Stop this nonsense.

  38. Re:Oh dear God. by Bert64 · · Score: 1

    I don't understand comments like this... Adobe's reader does suck, badly, but it's only a reference implementation adobe make available to demonstrate the format. If you want a better PDF reader, there are loads out there and your free to write your own if none of them suit you.
    The default preview app in OSX works well, and i often use kpdf under Linux, but there are many PDF readers for pretty much every platform in existance, there's even a PDF reader for AmigaOS, and no adobe don't make an official one for Amiga.

    --
    http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
  39. Dont confuse OpenSource with Open Standards by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Let us not confuse Open Source with Open Standards with Free software.

    There can be no doubt or argument that there should be only one open standard. Open meaning not owned by any entity or for-profit company. Ideally the standard should be specified and updated on behalf of all the consumers or all the people by the government or an institute chartered by it. The Standard specifying body should be completely neutral and agnostic. It should allow all players, big and small, for profit and non-profit, commercial and non commercial a level playing field. Such is the case with your nuts and bolts (SAE and DIN spec) or your engine oil or light bulbs or extension cords or ASCII encoding (not EBCDIE if any remembers that) and ANSI language specs.

    Open Source, one can debate, one can agree to various extent the usefulness or the lack of it. Pros and cons you can disagree with me. As long as neither you nor I control the standards, it is a level playing field and the market and history will prove either you or me as correct. Same with free software.

    Currently there are three standards being specified. Which itself is bad. OpenDoc, a microsoft thingie called OpenXML and now the OpenPDF. I like OpenXML least because it pretends to be a standard but it cant be implemented by all players without help/license from Microsoft. It has the audaucity to enshrine bugs of Office97 and Word6 and WordPerfect5 as standards . OpenDoc is already well on its way in the standards process. PDF has a much wider user installed base and has a financial muscle of a decent profit making company and its self interest. I wish PDF and OpenDoc will merge and come up with a unified standard.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Dont confuse OpenSource with Open Standards by norpan · · Score: 1

      Only one standard? The Standard? I see no problem in having a few formats to choose from as long as they are all open. A bit of diversity is good.

      Moreover, merging PDF and Open Document seems far fetched, they are completely different things.

      --
      Opinions expressed above are mine, and not my employees'.
    2. Re:Dont confuse OpenSource with Open Standards by aaronl · · Score: 1

      OpenDocument isn't really doing the same thing as PDF. ODF is content with formatting controls that is geared towards WYSIWYG. As a result, it has many of the same problems that Microsoft formats have with formatting changing based on drivers.

      PDF is a layout format. You do you document in a layout language, such as LaTeX, or a formatting system, like OpenOffice. Then you save your document to PDF as if you were publishing it. Changes should be made to the original document, and then re-exported as a PDF. You wouldn't send a PDF to someone, have them add some content, save it as a PDF, and send it back.

      OfficeXML is sort of like OpenDocument, but impossible to implement properly, mired in copyrights and patents, platform specific, and poorly documented. It doesn't do any of what a PDF does. Worse yet, if you code to the "specification" that Microsoft has made available, you still can't read and format the original document without their help.

      So, there isn't good reason to merge PDF and ODF, since they do very different things. You would be better off trying to get people to use the right tool for the job, rather than messing about with difficult conversions and such. We should use layout systems for doing work, and word processors for writing letters and memos.

    3. Re:Dont confuse OpenSource with Open Standards by DLG · · Score: 1

      There can be no doubt or argument that there should be only one open standard.
      I believe that there IS doubt and argument on this topic. I personally am not even sure if you are suggesting that no one should argue for or against the idea of a single open standard.

      Personally I see no reason that multiple standards should exist as long as they are open and maintained by independent bodies. The nature of file format standards which are clearly described and fully documented allow for translation between file formats as a relatively trivial effort. And when one finds this is not a trivial effort, then the standards diverge enough to suggest they have a real virtue as a seperate standard, perhaps by organizing the content in ways that have different purposes.

      Beyond this, the idea of a single standard is attractive until the process of extending that standard becomes a competition for each affected party's primary concerns.

      I am not sure why PDF and word processing documents have that much in common. PDF inherits from Postcript the idea that one can take the same language and describe a document for display or rendering on wide varities of devices. In many ways it is an output format.

      Most word processing documents are designed to allow quick editing and organization of large documents. They are usually not optimized for display, except for a proliferation of markup which has a multiple personality disorder confusion as to whether it is content or layout.

      I can see many reasons for multiple standards which are open. The idea of non-open standards make little sense to me. A standard needs to be open to be reliably standard. To suggest there is a standard and not communicate all details, nor allow others to use it without restriction is proprietary and not a true standard. Data formats which are proprietary have their purposes of course, but there are obviously benefits to encouraging standardization in an industry.

    4. Re:Dont confuse OpenSource with Open Standards by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Informative

      Currently there are three standards being specified. Which itself is bad. OpenDoc, a microsoft thingie called OpenXML and now the OpenPDF.

      Currently there are two existing standards, OpenDocument (not OpenDoc which is something else) and PDF. These standards are for different purposes. The former is for word processing, and other office documents. The latter is for distributing finished products that are intended to be portable and not editable by those receiving them.

      This article is about Adobe certifying their latest version of the PDF standard and announcing a formalized process for contributions from others to the development of the standard (rather than them doing most of the work and other companies contacting them to get things added).

      In addition to these established standards, MS is introducing two new formats designed to "compete" with the established standards. The first is OpenXML, which is is arguably a standard but which takes care to make sure the traditional benefits of open standards are unusable. The second is XPS, built into Vista and designed to replace PDF. It is actually pretty much an OpenXML file plus a directory of images and binaries, wrapped in DRM and compressed as a zip file, with the extension XPS.

      I wish PDF and OpenDoc will merge and come up with a unified standard.

      I can see the argument for this, but one of the main reasons people use PDF is because they can distribute files via the Web, e-mail, IM, or whatever and users can read but not alter that content along the way. I'm not suer these two formats should be merged, or that it would bring a lot of benefit to anyone. For example, I make PDF files that use a lot of features I don't need or want in a word processing program. I can make PDF documents from my Web browser and often to in order to archive my transactions. I'm not sure I want those files to be editable in any way, and I know that putting them in ODF format as it currently exists would add considerable bloat.

    5. Re:Dont confuse OpenSource with Open Standards by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
      Let us take a look at a few things with multiple standards.

      TV we have NTSC in USA, PAL in most of BritishCommonwealth (UK, India, Pak, Srilanka, Singapore etc) and somethings like SECAM (not sure) in mostly France and former French colonies (north africa, middle east? not very sure here).

      Grid electricity. 110 V 60 Hz in USA. 230 V 50 Hz in Europe, India and Japan(?).

      A few things are universal. Audio cassettes, CDs, Batteries A, AA, AAA, C and D type.

      Paper has US standards Letter/Legal etc. Or DIN standards A1, A2, A3, A4, ... B1 etc.

      Nuts and bolts have two major standards. SAE in imperial units and Metric.

      In general multiple standards for the same thing in the same geographical area will only lead to market fragmentation, failure to take advantages of economies of scale to the full extent and will hurt the consumer. Look how cheap AA, AAA metal hydride batteries are and how expensive less capable Ni-Cad batteries used in cordless phones are. The cordless phone batteries dont have a standard and each manufacturer has a captive market in the replacement battery market. It is so bad people throw away perfectly good cordless phones when their batteries die because it is cheaper to buy a new phone than a replacement battery.

      The standards should be open, agnostic and should not proselytize(sp?), sermonize, moralize or take sides and play politics about any issue like free ver paid software or open source vs closed source or private enterprise with govt companies. Standards have one and only one job. To provide a level playing field for all players.

      Some said, PDF/LaTeX etc are layout engines. And OpenDoc is a GUI spec. And so they dont mix. So it is like compaing. AA size battery with 5/16inch hex nut. If that is true then they are not two standards for the same thing. In that case my suggestion that OpenPDF and OpenDoc, is quite nonsensical. But I still think the MS's OpenXML is a very bad idea.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    6. Re:Dont confuse OpenSource with Open Standards by Steve001 · · Score: 1

      norpan wrote as part of a post:

      Only one standard? The Standard? I see no problem in having a few formats to choose from as long as they are all open. A bit of diversity is good.

      I agree. I think a problem with trying to have a single format that does everything is that it will result in unnecessary file complexity and larger files sizes. For word processing, I could see a need for a format for text-only files (which can keep file size down), and another format that allows for pictures, tables, and much more complex formatting. As long as the text can be passed from one format to another, having both standards in use at the same time shouldn't be a problem.

      To use already available formats, you could compare plain text, RTF, HTML, and OpenDocument. Each allows a different level of formatting that is appropriate for different uses. For example, if I was preparing a document that will viewed on various type of displays (PDA, computer monitor, cell phone) that won't be printed, HTML might be a good choice.

  40. ...meanwile at the entrance to the Holy Temple... by denzacar · · Score: 1, Funny

    Sean Connery gasps: "But in the Latin alphabet, 'de jure' is written with an 'I'!"

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  41. Re:Oh dear God. by revlayle · · Score: 1

    Fox-It is a wonderful PDF reader... slim on resources, and loads very fast!

  42. Re:How to resize PDF ? by smallfries · · Score: 1

    While this works the output can look a little like OCR sometimes. In some places pdftotxt has to reconstruct the text from glyphs (or strokepaths I can't remember which) and the conversion isn't perfect. Ligatures are a bitch as well.

    A similar way to go is pdftops followed by some pstops magic to cut out obxs (like text columns) and then reformat them onto a new page. To the OP I wuold say:

    man pdftops
    man pstops

    As these tools are magic, and you will love them.

    --
    Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
  43. Via AIM? by exploder · · Score: 4, Funny

    AdobeGrl2002: then like u put a 64-byte header blok
    ISO_19_TX: thats hot

    --
    Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
  44. The orginal press release by toolz · · Score: 1

    TFA doesn't seem to be reachable. Here is the original Adobe press release.

    --
    You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you
  45. All I want to know is... by Rageon · · Score: 1

    ...when can I finally get a free pdf creator/editor? I can view PDFs. I can make PDFs from other files. But I cannot edit PDFs (without the help of a pirated copy of Acrobat)? Why not?

    1. Re:All I want to know is... by MooUK · · Score: 1

      Free software for creating, reading and editing PDFs has been available for years on all platforms. There's a large number of links and products mentioned, open and proprietary, free and commercial, further up this discussion.

  46. Thanks but no thanks by Ancil · · Score: 1

    Have you actually looked at a PDF file in a text editor? It's a meaningless pile of spaghetti.

    Microsoft's XML Paper Specification (XPS) is already available for anyone to implement. And it's plain, readable XML instead of a 25-year-old printer description language. Your applicaiton can build files using any XML parsing engine, instead of having to license a PDF library.

    1. Re:Thanks but no thanks by benad · · Score: 1

      Have you even looked at XPS? It's like the RTF format, but with XML tags instead. Readable my *ss. XML doesn't make *anything* readable until you try to figure out what it means.

    2. Re:Thanks but no thanks by MooUK · · Score: 1

      There's no need to license PDF binaries. Plenty of free and open PDF implementations exists for all platforms.

    3. Re:Thanks but no thanks by CoughDropAddict · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Have you actually looked at a PDF file in a text editor? It's a meaningless pile of spaghetti.

      What you mean is that it's not human-readable. And it's not designed to be -- what's the point of that? It's not going to be human-writable or human-editable.

      And it's plain, readable XML instead of a 25-year-old printer description language.

      XML is a subset of a 40-year-old markup language. XML has become the ultimate cancer on computing -- it's this seductive hammer that makes everything look like a nail, and when the first round of XML doesn't quite solve the problem, the solution is to throw on a little *more* XML.

      XML is wastefully large, so all XML formats have to be compressed to be at all competetive in terms of file size.

      XML is totally un-indexable, so you can't let any single XML document grow too big (because you always have to parse from the start to get the data you really want). So XML formats often have to break up their data into multiple XML files, and then make the "file format" a zip archive of various XML documents sprinkled around.

      Your applicaiton can build files using any XML parsing engine, instead of having to license a PDF library.

      Do you have any idea how miniscule a part of PDF *or* XPS functionality consists of parsing? One chapter (~130 pages) of the PDF spec covers syntax. The remaining 7 chapters (~650 pages) deal with how to interpret and render what you've parsed.

      That XML library you use to read/write XPS files is going to be pretty useless on its own, unless you're also using a library that specifically knows the XPS format.

    4. Re:Thanks but no thanks by Doctor+Faustus · · Score: 1

      Have you actually looked at a PDF file in a text editor?
      Yes, and I wrote a Java library for creating PDF files as my senior project.

      It's a meaningless pile of spaghetti.
      That depends on the PDF. An object inside a PDF file can be all sorts of things; the most basic are text and plain-text formatting commands. However, that kind of PDF object can also be compressed inside the PDF file, and you can also have images and font definitons inside the PDF; all of those will look like gobbledygook.

    5. Re:Thanks but no thanks by pclminion · · Score: 1

      Have you actually looked at a PDF file in a text editor? It's a meaningless pile of spaghetti.

      Most of that is due to the compression of stream data in PDF documents. If you run the document through a PDF stream decompressor, of which there are several good options, the result is much easier to comprehend, if not totally transparent. Unfortunately, just being able to see the data in a PDF doesn't mean you can edit it, say, with a text editor. PDF files implement random access with a table of contents pointing to the objects inside the file. Changing the contents of the objects breaks the index.

      Microsoft's XML Paper Specification (XPS) is already available for anyone to implement. And it's plain, readable XML instead of a 25-year-old printer description language. Your applicaiton can build files using any XML parsing engine, instead of having to license a PDF library.

      XPS is an interesting new option, definitely. But I think you are exaggerating the complexity of PDF. Both formats are a "final rendering" format, not really geared toward hand-editing. Don't let the XML nature of XPS fool you -- it is intended as a solution for device-independent printing, not a document format.

      The product I work on performs its own PDF rendering and output. We chose to write our own PDF layer instead of licensing a third party product. It really isn't that difficult.

  47. Re:mmmmmmmmm by homey+of+my+owney · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    how appropriate... the word buttplug coming from an asshole

  48. I'm french by B0red+At+W0rk · · Score: 0

    "a full blown de jure standard" What the hell does "de jure" mean?

  49. Flashpaper ? by skahshah · · Score: 1

    Good move Adobe ! Now, I don't want to be too solicitous, but I hope you'll do the same thing with Flashpaper.

  50. It's free with OpenOffice. by nbritton · · Score: 1

    Cry me a river... If you want to use PDF then use OpenOffice, it a free download. ODF and PDF are international standards, it serves you right for using a proprietary product with proprietary formats.

  51. Adobe employee responds to some raised questions by Jugalator · · Score: 2, Interesting

    FYI, an Adobe employee responded to some questions about this and especially how it relates to Microsoft's new XPS format here. (Nickull's reply should be at the top of that page)

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  52. Re:Oh dear God. by pNutz · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Fox-It saved my baby. The house was burning, everyone else said it was too late, but Fox-It was not deterred. Slim and fast, Fox-it dashed into the house and produced my baby, sooty and coughing, but alive. That you Fox-It pro, without you all of our children would die.

    --
    Death and danger are my various breads and various butters.
  53. ISO 26300 by nbritton · · Score: 1

    OpenDocument is already a ISO standard, ISO 26300. The status is 60.60, which means "International Standard published".

    "ISO/IEC 26300:2006 defines an XML schema for office applications and its semantics. The schema is suitable for office documents, including text documents, spreadsheets, charts and graphical documents like drawings or presentations, but is not restricted to these kinds of documents.

    ISO/IEC 26300:2006 provides for high-level information suitable for editing documents. It defines suitable XML structures for office documents and is friendly to transformations using XSLT or similar XML-based tools."

    http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.Cata logueDetail?CSNUMBER=43485&scopelist=PROGRAMME

  54. Releasing via AIIM by CmdrPorno · · Score: 2, Funny

    Why do they need to use AOL Instant Messenger to release it? Couldn't they just set up a Torrent of the spec?

    --
    Sent from my iPhone
  55. Except... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whenever someone tries to implement a doc-to-pdf functionality, they get threatened to have their pants sued off... Adobe doesn't do "open".

  56. Re:Oh dear God. by fluffman86 · · Score: 1

    I think you are confusing Foxit with Firefox. It was Firefox that rescued me and my fiancee from the burning fires of Hell (aka IE).

  57. Re:Oh dear God. by revlayle · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but Firefox is a little pudgy and not so fast... while it may have saved your baby from a fire... it probably won't do it nearly as fast as Fox-It

  58. FYI by Rohan427 · · Score: 1

    The name of the organization is: ISO - International Organization for Standardization. I have no idea why it's "ISO" when clearly it should be "IOS".

    PGA

    1. Re:FYI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From ISO web site:
      http://www.iso.org/iso/en/aboutiso/introduction/in dex.html#three

      Because "International Organization for Standardization" would have different abbreviations in different languages ("IOS" in English, "OIN" in French for Organisation internationale de normalisation), it was decided at the outset to use a word derived from the Greek isos, meaning "equal". Therefore, whatever the country, whatever the language, the short form of the organization's name is always ISO.

  59. Instant Messenger? by ryanguill · · Score: 1

    it will release the entire PDF specification (current version 1.7 [CC]) to the International Standards Organization (ISO) via AIIM.
    You would think they would just send an email instead of copying all of that into an instant messenger window... oh, wait...
  60. What about the standard fonts? by Rogerio+Gatto · · Score: 1

    Is Adobe open sourcing the standard PDF fonts (Helvetica, Times, etc.)? Font embedding is possible in PDF, but produces larger files and is a PAIN to code.

    1. Re:What about the standard fonts? by mark-t · · Score: 1

      Those are Postscript fonts, not PDF fonts.

  61. Think thin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A year or so ago I saw a dead trees edition in a bookstore. If it had been printed on thinner paper I might have purchased instead of downloaded it. I have an old Intel manual from 20 years ago kicking around and its around 458 pages and only 14mm (a little less than 9/16") thick and still in good shape despite having gotten a lot of use.

        I realize that the "Fat Book Syndrome" was a marketing ploy to impress PHBs despite the inconvenience of the extra bulk and additional strain on the environment. Now that there is meaningful competition amongst purveyors of standards along the dimension of perceived complexity, wouldn't the "Thin book advantage" be a boon to those wishing to show that their standard is more easily digestible?

  62. Please mod parent up! by Enderandrew · · Score: 1

    Thanks, an actual informative post!

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
  63. Re:mmmmmmmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LOL GAY!


     

  64. Let me paraphrase that for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    PDF has reached a point in its maturity cycle where maintaining it in an open standards manner is the next logical step in evolution.

    Windows Vista includes a PDF-alike which will put our product out of business the same way that happened to Netscape and many others.

  65. Obvious Reason by eklitzke · · Score: 1

    Two reasons:
    1) PDF can embed fonts
    2) PDF can embed vector graphics natively.

    This is a big deal to me. I am a university student studying math. Aside from the obvious reasons that Microsoft doesn't have any compelling (math) typesetting products, there is simply no way that I could create a paper in Word and be able to send it to you and reasonably expect you to be able to read it. You simply don't have the correct fonts/symbols installed on your computer. And if I have some figures or diagrams in the document, I don't want them in some crappy raster image format. I want them in a vector format. Sure, there's no reason that Microsoft couldn't create a vector image format (or adopt something like SVG), but since Postscript (and by association, PDF) has had this capability for twenty years already there simply isn't any reason to.

    Again, there's no reason that Microsoft can't create a competing file format that incorporates vector drawing and embedded fonts. But PDF is good, it is a standard, it is well known, etc. It has very important features that are lacking in the Office file formats (and the reverse is true, but that's not the point), and it simply doesn't make a whole lot of sense to try to incorporate these features in to Office.

    --
    #include ".signature"
  66. PDF will be the standard by feranick · · Score: 1

    I don't think XPS will ever be able to take over PDF. Surely Word and Excel became so widely popular over WordPerfect or others, because of the general widespread presence of Windows. However those alternatives were anywhere near the popularity that PDF has today. Any OS but windows handles PDF natively. XPS will need some sort of programs for non-windows OSes including Macs (most likely) and Linux (unlikely). I have the feeling MS will push XPS as their standard, and using the monopoly they will try to kill PDF. However PDF will be there for a long time for the simple reason of its current presence. It's the same as saying: MS proposes a new format for HTML, non compatible. Will it change the web? No, I don't think so.

    1. Re:PDF will be the standard by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 1

      I have the feeling MS will push XPS as their standard, and using the monopoly they will try to kill PDF. However PDF will be there for a long time for the simple reason of its current presence.

      When Vista is ubiquitous, XPS will have a very large market share. I'm guessing this will be about 5 years time. PDF won't die right away, but unless MS is stopped form their monopoly abuse (by the courts) or their monopoly is taken down, it will almost certainly happen.

      It's the same as saying: MS proposes a new format for HTML, non compatible. Will it change the web? No, I don't think so.

      I hope you are being ironic, since broken, IE-specific HTML has changed the Web and ancient versions of HTML/CSS/XHTML are the norm instead of something remotely up to date. Now with .net, MS hopes to make sure the future of the Web is MS proprietary and they are the gatekeepers and they will use IE+Windows to make sure Web based programs are severely limited until they manage this lock-in.

    2. Re:PDF will be the standard by feranick · · Score: 1

      So true....

  67. Nitpick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ISO is not "International Standards Organization", it's "International Organization for Standardization". ISO comes from the Greek isos, meaning "equal".

  68. Obligatory coding flame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's == It is. Its == possessive. So, what's the answer to your comparison? 1 or 0?

    == = Comparison

    = = Assignment
  69. So? by gumpish · · Score: 1

    Does this mean we'll see free tools to do things like create PDFs which unlock the hidden ability of Acrobat Reader to save filled-in form data?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_LiveCycle_Reade r_Extensions
    http://www.adobe.com/products/server/readerextensi ons/

  70. Stop posting things with horrid write-ups... by suitepotato · · Score: 1

    I thought that it was being sent to the ISO via AIM and immediately pictured them replying, "wtfbbq?! rofl! n00bs!"

    --
    If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
  71. the interface of Adobe Acrobat 8.0 by guardia · · Score: 1

    Download and try out Acrobat Reader 8.0... they *completely* changed the interface. It looks pretty slick to me, although I haven't used it much because it's not available for Linux yet...

    1. Re:the interface of Adobe Acrobat 8.0 by BillGatesLoveChild · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the tip. I'd been avoiding it since noticing every release since 4 got worse and worse.

      (Adobe: Nobody needs flashing advertisements when they're trying to read a document. e.g. Adobe 7.0 on my Compaq flashes up an obnoxious "SPECIAL OFFER FOR HP CUSTOMERS!")

  72. BookMark by kentsin · · Score: 0

    I just want to know how and when I can place a bookmark before I finish reading and re-open at the same page when I came back from reality.

  73. very important for OSS by bcrowell · · Score: 1

    This has the potential to be a very positive development for OSS. For decades, it's already been possible to read and write pdf using OSS. However, there has been a tendency for many commercial printing businesses to demand pdfs written by Adobe distiller. Others place arbitrary, undocumented limitations on what pdf files they'll accept. For instance, some apple apps write pdf files that have a lot of layers in them, and are computationally expensive to print, so printers will just bounce them back. Generally what seems to happen is that the only way to be 100% safe is to use distiller. If the customer uses distiller, then he figures, "Hey, distiller wrote it, so you damn well better be able to print it." The printer responds to that by setting their criteria so that distiller-written docs tend to be ok. Also, adobe is always a few steps ahead of everybody else in the sophistication of their pdf implementation, so distiller-generated pdfs may be less buggy, or better optimized so they aren't computationally expensive to render. Inside the docutech or whatever, the printer is probably running some version of adobe reader, so it's also likely that adobe-generated pdf will be the most compatible with adobe's own reader.

    For these reasons, standardization could be a boon to people writing pdfs with OSS. People can now say, "Hey, it follows the standard, so you damn well better be able to print it." I'm not familiar with the different flavors of pdf referred to in the /. summary, but it may be that adobe is making an effort to define standard subsets of the language for various purposes. If that's what's actually happening, it could be a good thing, because instead of setting their own undocumented criteria, printers could start saying "We accept subset $foo of pdf."

    AFAIK, the biggest remaining fly in the ointment is color management. If you want to do high-end color management, you basically don't have any options with OSS, because of patents.

  74. Re:How to resize PDF ? by sd1248 · · Score: 1

    PDF is fine for what is was designed for: creating print documents. But I hate pdf when reading it on the screen as it won't fit my window width: either you have to scroll back and forth every line or the characters are too small to read. Is there any app that can 'uncompile' a pdf and fit it on a screen width ? Might be a great app for reading docs on a laptop/pda/cell phone.

    In Adobe Reader you can select 'Reflow' from the View menu. For best results the PDF needs to contain document structuring tags. The PDF specification supports reflowing text however not all PDF generators embed the necessary tags to allow the viewer to correctly reflow the text.

  75. Foxit is fast, but lacks some features by adah · · Score: 1

    Foxit. Windows and (now) Linux. Takes about 1/2 a second to open.

    Foxit is fast, but lacks some features. Apart from the fact that its interface is a copycat, it does not support non-Latin1 characters well. Although I was able to display a Chinese PDF file, I could not successfully copy the text correctly. With Adobe Reader it was OK.