Adobe is an Arrow in the Internet's Foot

Free Republic ^ | 7/16/2003 | Reagan Renaissance

[Reagan Renaissance]

I despise Adobe software and the company. First the company and some of its officers were among the largest campaign contributors to Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party. The pdf format is among, if not the least efficient means of sharing and communicating information. Files are huge, slowing the internet and hogging servers. Once transmitted the files are in the least useful format for handling and analyzing data. And if storage is desired these files take up unnecessarily immense disc space. Governments always do the wrong things for the wrong reasons; it is not surprising that adobe has become a mainstay of government. I despise financial centers and conveyors of financial information who use adobe files.

In the future if it is at all possible, I will avoid sharing any information in this file format and I will avoid, where reasonable or possible, doing business with companies that provide data only in pdf format. If you want my money, you better provide data in some other more efficient file format. Do not expect my to pay for inconvenience and inefficiency. I hope other internet users will spread the word about the inefficiencies of pdf and stop using this format. There is no reason to reward your enemies and paying for the privilege of inefficiency.

[Reagan Renaissance]

Nothing would make me happier than seeing Adobe on the list of bankrupt companies. There is nothing agile or acrobatic about data sharing using adobe, "blind" is closer to reality.

[PhiKapMom]

You and me both! I hate Adobe Acrobat -- really hate it and it irritates me when I have to use it! I sincerely hope they do go bankrupt!

[Frank_Discussion]

So, your suggested alternative is: What? Not that I wouldn't love to have more editing capability, but I have always been able to get what I want out of pdf stuff.

[Jay D. Dyson]

My love of Adobe products was way over when they had Dmitry Sklyarov busted for his presentation at Defcon IX.

Dmitry's only "crime" was showing that Adobe's eBooks "security" was utterly bogus.

-Jay

[wideawake]

Thank you.

.pdf documents are unsearchable and take up enormous disc space.

Paper is more practical.

[GunsareOK]

They also do that miserable Photoshop program. UGH!!!

[LibWhacker]

Absolutely hate it! Can't view pdf documents online. Instead have to download them to harddisk, THEN view them, THEN remember to erase them (or else lose multimegabytes of storage space).

Don't want to talk to anybody with a Mac anyway, lol.

Didn't know they where libs. Figures.

[lelio]

.pdf documents are unsearchable
I must be dreaming when I've done searches on PDF documents.
The above poster had it right: what's the alternative? MS Word? How many different version of that are out there that can't read each others file formats? What if I just want to read it, is there a freely available reader on all platforms?
I would like to see the industry move towards XML, HTML, and CSS but I don't see that happening within the next 5 years. Until then PDF works fine for me. Plus if you want to make something for people to print out, PDF is about the only way to go.

[bcoffey]

"So, your suggested alternative is: What?"

.... jumping into the midst of the discussion ...

A well-designed XML schema would go a long way towards making documents more portable. I'm not talking about the crippled approach that Microsoft is taking in their next version of Office but a more substantial offering such as the one being used by AbiWord. (See www.abiword.org).

[Diverdogz]

Some PDF files are searchable and some not. It depends on how the document is created. If its scanned like an image, then obviously not. But I think adobe has software which will convert a Microsoft Word document file, for example, into a .pdf such that the .pdf file searched for text strings.

[B Knotts]

Ummm...you do know that there is other software for creating and reading PDF files, right?

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.

Never really thought about it, but I agree with your complaints.

[Diverdogz]

...is searchable for text strings...

[Constitution Day]

I happen to love PDF files.
We use them all the time for sending AutoCAD drawings when we don't wish to send the actual drawing file, which can be manipulated after we send it.

[RightWhale]

The pdf format is among, if not the least efficient means of sharing and communicating information.

PDF is meant to address the needs of scientists who include mathematical formulas embedded in their documents. PDF is overused and used for other purposes than originally intended, which BTW was formatting for use of the printer. As a file exchange format, it is severe overkill. For those who wish to take the freeware route to publishing, there is TEX. I don't know why gov't agencies, esp. at the federal level, need to send printer-ready formatted docs to the general public, but they usually manage to embed at least one illustration or chart to justify their use of the format. Overkill, except in scientific papers.

[AntiGuv]

The moral is to develop a faster Internet (as in 40,000 times faster, like the ftp protocol innovation CalTech is working on) not to shoot the messenger...

[B Knotts]

Can't view pdf documents online. Instead have to download them to harddisk, THEN view them, THEN remember to erase them (or else lose multimegabytes of storage space).

Where would you get that idea?

Any modern PDF reader should embed in your browser, and work from a temporary copy of the file that your browser fetches.

[wideawake]

I know that searchable .pdf documents exist, but usually they are imported into .pdf from some other intrinsically searchable file format.

Scanned-in documents aren't, to my knowledge, searchable and the bulk of my work involves scanned docs.

[TexasRepublic]

The Acrobat .pdf allows far more complex and accurate formatting than pure HTML, and from a variety of sources. Try exporting a complex layout from MS-Word to both .pdf and HTML and then compare the results.

[mil-vet]

I didn't know all this bad stuff about Adobe - I've been using Photoshop for some time and think it works great. Have you got an alternate graphics handling program which does the same functions? I would definitely be interested, unless, of course, it's a microsoft product - LOL!