pdf why?

[miles]

Of all the annoying things, next to flash, pdf files are on my top list of things the net can do with out. PDF files are a pain in the butt. It takes too long to load and each time you scroll the page has to reload, did I mention it takes forever to load, it looks crappy graphics wise, every time I go to look at one of the pdf files adobe ask if I want the latest version, it takes too long to load, offers no real advantage over html and the page blinks while it takes forever to load.

Why do people still insist on using pdf? Is there any real reason for it? Is it a lazy way of making a web page or what?

[Chris_R]

It is the best way by far to print out reports and the like.

You simply can't get tables to print out uniformly on other things.

Here is one thing that DOES bother me - and it happens on more than one of my computers.

1) Load up a webpage with pdf and it works fine.

2) Close the browser or hit back and it lets me.

3) Try to go to another webpage with pdf and I am hosed.

Seems like something called acroread32.something or other is still in there even after I close the browser. I try and remember to close it out with ctrl+alt+del, but sometimes I forget

Anyone else run into this?

As far as it being slow - you might need more memory or something. I just bought the computer I am typing on last month for $600 out of best buy. It is nothing fancy - and while it probably takes a minute to load a 35 page document - a few pages take only a couple seconds.

[bcc1234]

It's the best format when you need to print and view on the screen in the same environment.

The specs are open and there are no executable components - just data.

It's not perfect, but the best out there, that's for sure.

[miles]

I see your points, but I think that html is better. When I do any search and come accross a pdf document I dont even give it the time of day due to the reasons I stated in my first post.

Chris R "Seems like something called acroread32.something or other is still in there even after I close the browser. I try and remember to close it out with ctrl+alt+del, but sometimes I forget."

I get this too and it sucks. Time waisted to get the information was waisted for the sake of what may be an easy way of viewing document. I just dont see any redeeming factors in using or creating documents in a pdf format.

If there are any advantages to using pdf please inform me.

[JayC]

I just dont see any redeeming factors in using or creating documents in a pdf format.

Add "for general use viewing on the web" and I'd agree with you. But for electronic distribution of print documents there's nothing better.

[agerhart]

At least they load quickly Miles. ;)

[txbakers]

HTML and PDF are two distinct technologies used for different purposes.

Some people try to use PDF as web pages and use HTML for printing documents, but that is a personal decision, not a reflection on the underlying technology.

PDF file are compact and very portable. Hence the name Portable Document Format. The text is scalable, it can be used as a form template, and it works within a web browser or as a stand alone application. They are fast to download and share. It truly is the best format for sharing documents that need to be printed.

HTML files are really only designed to take text and present it through a web browser, hence the name Hyper-Text MARKUP language. It is a set of instructions to format text. Through the years people have developed other creative uses of the markup tags, such as including images, movies, sounds, and other events through additions of scripts and applets. But the primary purpose of HTML is to present text through a browser.

Think about tax forms. You can do an adequate job to create a tax form in HTML. But there is no way to guaranteee that the output will be identical on every computer, browser or printer. PDF will guarantee that.

If a person designs a website using PDF instead of HTML, it's that person's own fault. Just as you can create a web site using Word or Excel, you can create a PDF based site. But don't expect people to like it, or to return to it.

[engine]

One reason why PDFs loads so slowly on the web is because so few people learn how to minimse the file size.

As previously mentioned, PDFs allow much better control of the final shared document. Layout of graphics, text, diagrams, etc., remain perfectly formatted in place, wherever the document is shared or printed.

It is also possible to produce PDFs in high resolution for litho printing, too.

[miles]

So basically the pdf is more for printable material where as the html is for the net. That makes sence.

The reason behind this thread is due to my surfing this morning. I wanted to check out a product and a pdf page comes up an took forever to load and I still did not get a chance to look at the products without seeing a blinking page. Some people wont ever learn.

Thanks for the clarification on the subject.

[sun818]

blinking page

It sounds like the manufacturer may just scanned the entire page as a graphic or in some other did not optimize the image before making it a PDF. A PDF that is 25k you open in Acrobat (editor) can balloon up to 800k if you are not careful.

[keyplyr]

I recently changed 2 dozen edu documents from HTML to PDF. Now they download and print uniformally for all, no matter what browser, what OS they use. Presently printable files in PDF is probably the most user-friendly thing a webmaster can do.

[Oaf357]

PDFs are great for documents. They aren't designed to take place of HTML.

Several articles I have written will get converted to PDF in the future.

[jmmygoggle]

I have the exact same problem with PDF's that Chris_R has reported with a stray Acrord32 in the Windows Close Program dialog. Not only does it often cause problems when visiting more than one PDF but I think it's been the culprit for many machine crashes and general havoc on my machine even if I've only opened one PDF. In 7 out of 10 instances when my machine freaks out that annoying Acrord32 is present after having opened a PDF via the web browser - which I try to avoid at all costs. (But I'm using Windows so things are going to freak out regularly anyway.)

I particularly hate it when I click on a link that is not distinctly labeled a PDF and I fail to check the status bar to see if the link ends with the .pdf file extension.

I completely understand the value of a PDF but I really don't enjoy the difficulties surrounding the plug-in and the complexities of optimizing the PDFs themselves. Or would everything be fine if we all had fat bandwidth (clogged with PDFs)?

It would be nice if open source or open standards - XML/CSS/vector graphics - could evolve enough to avoid this proprietary nonsense.

[nex2k]

PDF documents are used because they are simple to create and they don't require the seperation of style and substance. When someone types a document in Word and wants to put it on the web, it's easier for them to convert it to a huge PDF file than to add markup tags and make a stylesheet.

However, I think that XHTML and CSS are the best technologies for presenting information on the web. I don't think that PDF documents will load in our future web-enabled cell phones and Pocket PCs.

Using a stylesheet with the media="print" attribute we can reformat an entire page to print perfectly on paper. I can't wait for the "Click here for printable version" or "Print this document in PDF" links to start disappearing. Of course, I'm still waiting for SVG to replace Flash... and PNG to replace GIF...

[Sinner_G]

Using a stylesheet with the media="print" attribute we can reformat an entire page to print perfectly on paper.

...if the viewer uses IE (4.0 and above). Netscape (up to 6.0 at least) ignores media=print and I'm not sure about opera (7.01 gets it right) and the other browsers out there.

[nex2k]

...if the viewer uses IE (4.0 and above). Netscape (up to 6.0 at least) ignores media=print and I'm not sure about opera (7.01 gets it right) and the other browsers out there.

Except for the nostalgic (and shrinking) Netscape 4.x crowd, I'm pretty sure that most people are using at least a version 5 browser. So media="print" support is available for almost all web users.

Opera has supported media="print" since version 4.

[MWpro]

The only problem I have with pdf files is when people use them as their sites. This is the most annoying thing ever, and I immediately hit the back button. I wouldn't mind if they had their html website and a link to a printer friendly pdf file, and text saying that it is a pdf file so you know what to expect.

[mivox]

PDFs are good for downloadable documents. Product manuals and specification sheets... Any document that you want to guarantee proper printing for. Or legal documents where the document content must be left unchanged.

It could be worse than a PDF... people could be trying to feed you Word .docs, Excel spreadsheets, or (good heavens) PowerPoint presentations converted to HTML.... and you know they're thinking "Hey, everyone has MS Office, don't they?"

If you save the PDF file to your hardrive, it won't blink anymore, and you won't leave obnoxious swaths of traffic in their logfiles where the server recorded a new request every time the ^&*%$#& pdf blinked at you... ;) (I swear, we've had people come to our site and read every page of a 200+ page product manual through their browser!)

[Oaf357]

Save it to disk and be done with it.

You'll actually save time and bandwidth.

[excaliber]

Try working with a document or drawing that extends beyond your web pages boundaries, breaking the consistency of your site, or needing a table with column and data, creating an endless horzontally scrolling page. Make the user endure this kind of frustration, not to mention if they wanted to print it, and they would never return. When you create a PDF version of a document, it prints exactly the same way on everyone's machine. Page breaks don't move - they way it looks is exactly what you get. It is typically used for documentation such as manuals where you want to look at an entire document. If you created a manual using HTML, it would be a nightmare to deal with - believe me, I had to do this for one client.

[txbakers]

I wish there was a better way to incorporate active data into PDF documents.

I have a series of sites where I need to print database driven forms. I do it in HTML with media-print CSS and it works.......most of the time. Everyone's margins are different based on the printer they own.

There is a server side solution called Active PDF which supposedly converts your HTML page to PDF on the server side, but I never got the demo to work and their help was lousy so I abandoned it.

There is a client side program which allows the user to "print" to PDF before actually printing called PDFFactory pro from fineprint.com which I use quite a bit now for screen shots and more. When my users have trouble with the HTML forms, I recommend they download this program to produce their forms.

[g1smd]

PDF is great for documents you download, save as a file, and then read offline.

I would rather have people send me PDF files than send anything like bloated Word or Office documents.

You can remove some of the flickering effects by changing the page scrolling options. The default is to jump to the next page top after each page break. I display pages as end to end joined, and this gives smooth scrolling and no page-break "jump".