On 08-Feb-02 MJ Ray wrote:
Ted wrote: [...]
Therefore I don't recognise the situation Mark is describing, at any rate for the Reader viewer. If Mark is referring to other viewers, with which PDF is "hairy", gives "unhelpful error messages", etc., then my first reaction is "don't use that viewer". [...]
Yes, but given that some PDF files make both of the viewers I have here fail with cryptic messages, that leaves me with a choice of zero viewers. Not exactly the most readable document ever ;-)
Now, I think, the "cross-purposes" I referred to earlier may be coming to the surface. Or, the cards are being put on the table ... It seems you will only use xpdf or ghostscript. I have very little experience of using either for PDF, so can't comment from experience on the failures you report with these. However, I would be interested to learn of comparisons between xpdf, ghostscript and Acrobat Reader used on the same files. My experience with trying an early xpdf was catastrophic. Though the recent version seems to display OK (though with low rendering quality), its collateral functionality seems very limited and its handling of annotations ("PDFMarks") is limited (e.g. "Notes", "Thumbnails" etc don't work). Ghostscript is similar but worse: no access to zoom, find etc.; and PDFMarks don't work at all. So, as far as I'm concerned, these two are next to useless.
And that, to be frank, is the fault of these two viewers, and not of the PDF format. And this (see below) is why I use Reader -- which, in my experience, simply works. If xpdf and ghostscript worked as I need them to, I'd probably use them myself. But they don't.
But, in summary again, provided you use Acrobat Reader, in my belief there are no major problems with PDF unless it has been badly generated; with the caveat about Adobe software (not sure if this applies to Reader) possibly getting huffy about non-Adobe source.
That is a huuuge pair of caveats you have there. First off, if it's not free, it's not here (with one shameful exception AFAIK).
That's your choice. But by limiting yourself to Free software, you have to take the downside that you're closing a lot of your options in real life.
For instance, I use Free software where possible for what I need to do: 'octave' instead of MatLab; 'R' instead of S-Plus; and these GPL'd packages are sufficiently close to their proprietary counterparts that basic usage is almost identical. Where you hit limits is in "add-on" libraries which extend their pre-programmed functionality (though, if you know what you're doing, you are in a position to program this yourself. But life is short, especially real life ... ).
If there was a fully-functional replacement for Reader, I'd probably be using it. But since there isn't ...
Secondly, if their reader throws its toys out of the pram if non-Adobe producer software creates it, do you really want to support Adobe trying to pull a Microsoft?
What I was reporting is what some people have said; I've not experienced such problems myself.
They're not really the most fluffy of corporations, as the current Sklyarov/Elcomsoft case and the resultant Adobe Boycott should show.
I certainly don't like the "lock-in" tricks that commercial software producers pull. Top of the list, of course, is MS; and like you I don't like what I hear about Adobe. And I recognise the danger of propretary "extensions" to public standards (as in certain Web Pages locking you into IE).
But this is with the Idealist hat on.
In practice, one needs to get things done. I will use MS Word/Excel/etc when I have to (which is often), though I would never use them for my own pleasure and satisfaction. The plain fact is that, still, these things do dominate the desktop world of work. If you don't go along, you're locked out.
I do believe that this will change. But it won't be achieved by rigidly idealistic banging of heads on thick brick walls. Rather, I put greater faith in the sort of way I work myself: by all means keep your punters happy (or rather, avoid making them lose their cool), making it easy for them by going along with the software they know and can use. At the same time, take the opportunity to show off what can be achieved by the GPL software you prefer yourself. I've often seen someone's jaw drop when a couple of lines of 'awk', or a snappy command-line in 'octave', etc., have performed in a couple of seconds something they've been clicking at all morning in Windows.
But at present there's a limited front on which you can pull this off. It will broaden, I hope and believe. And what it allows you to do, at certain points along that brick wall, is to start digging under it. When you have enough big holes beneath it, it will start to collapse.
But your ticket for being allowed to get near enough to the wall is being on good terms with the people using the Other Stuff. Once you've infitrated, you can subvert. In my experience, it works, albeit slowly.
So, what you can achieve using Free Software, achieve that way. What you can only achieve using The Other, achieve that way (even with a heavy heart). And take the long view! [1]
This difference in software may well be why I don't recognise the situation that you describe and view PDF as being a fairly bad format for document distribution. When is a standard not a standard?
Well, yes, I think this is the point we have been circling around! However, the fact (on which we agree) that we don't like Adobe's proprietariness does not imply that PDF is a bad format in itself.