Re: The downside of PDF

["Walker, Arlen P" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM>]

     PDF is a format that allows you to ensure that the
     formatting of a document will be maintained when printed.

Ummm....No. That's not it at all. The function of PDF is to ensure that a
document will retain its format when viewed. The original intent of PDF
had very little whatever to do with printing, and everything to do with
the fact that no document storage format worked on every computing
platform without some headaches. (Want to see an interesting example?
Start on either a Mac or a PC. Create a chart in Excel which uses vertical
text as a label for the y axis. Now place that chart in a Word document
using your favorite method. Save the Word doc and open on the other
platform -- open on a Mac if you started with Windows, or open it on
Windows if you started on a Mac. Look at the axis label. If you can find
it.)

PDF was designed as an electronic cross-platform viewing format. Printing
was only incidental to it. The page size can be redefined to nearly any
size (I've seen PDF docs with 9x7 pages, also 4x7 and several other wierd
sizes) and printing can even be inhibited (or could in the early versions
of acrobat, I'll have to admit I haven't tried it with the later
versions).


Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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In God we trust; all others must provide data.
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Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.

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