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Re: PDF As A Standard



On the flip side to Maverick's comments, there is the fact that the Acrobat
Reader is available for free (which, duh, is probably why the format has become
the "standard"), so there's no reason why anyone can't download a copy off of
the web.  The pages of some sites I run occasionally have PDFs on them, and I
always leave a note that there are PDFs, with a link to Adobe's site if they
need to download it.

The great benefit of the *reader* program, rather than the *creator* program, is
that it means nobody can mess with your documents except the very determined.
Most folks won't spend the money to buy the Acrobat product unless they really
need to, so you can probably launch PDFs fairly securely.

I agree, though, that this only makes PDF  a good _display_ medium for archives.
_Preservation_ is another matter altogether, and as much as I like PDF, I
personally wouldn't want to depend on it for PERMANENT storage.  Not that TIFFs
and JPEGs are any more dependable either, at least forever.  The next great file
format will be along before we know it, and all of our old files will become
obsolete and unreadable.

Sigh.

Is it too late to go back to the 19th Century?

Daniel

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