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My comments on this thread really are not attacks on any person or a
reflection of any anger. Simply put, I see plenty of evidence that the PDF
format has enabled content to be made available online that otherwise would
not have been readily available at all, that beginning with at least version
2.1, Adobe has endeavored to make PDF an online format where none of its
type existed before, and that if you setup your workflow beforehand, PDFs
can be very usable and useful online.
Limitations of online presentation, such as the amount of content, the
typical sub-100-ppi resolution of monitors, and the fact that monitors only
really display rasters, with their lack of scalability, jaggies, and
anti-aliasing, are not, I repeat, are not limitations of PDF. These are
limitations of the medium. PDF has limitations, yes. For example, Adobe
apparently locked in the 1:1 pixel rendering of images in increments of
72ppi, by which I mean if you put a 72ppi image in your PDF, it will display
quite crisply at 100% zoom, and a 144ppi image will display quite crisply at
200% zoom, and so forth. With planning, this PDF limitation can be addressed
(in many ways), or understood. Similarly, because vector art does not
display at all on-screen, fonts exhibit anti-aliasing. This can be worked
around, too. I readily admit that Adobe Acrobat display is not as flexible
as Microsoft Word's display, if that is where this thread is heading, but
Microsoft Word is a fully-featured Word Processing application, Adobe
Acrobat Reader is a free, cross-platform viewer. Nevertheless, just as I can
design my documents to work well in PDF, so too I can create documents that
work poorly in Word.
In short, Microsoft Word does not work like PageMaker which does not work
like WordPerfect which does not work like Adobe Acrobat, and all of these
are subject to the limitations of the media and the audience for which you
are creating your deliverable. Thus, by working to the strengths of your
tool and with a knowledge of your tool, delivery media, and audience, you
can work with these tools to produce acceptable output.
PDFs can quite effectively be used as online documents, can display
information well within the limitations of the output media, and you can
overcome usability and readability issues by designing your documents for
their intended means of delivery and audience.
Best regards,
Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Hall [SMTP:dhall -at- san-carlos -dot- rms -dot- slb -dot- com]
> I wasn't offended! I hope my jest (the scanning my monitor
> to make pdf's, etc.) didn't offend you.
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