On Thu, 8 Feb 2001, Alan Pozner wrote:
> Acrobat has one and only one advantage over plain text. The document with
> all formatting and fonts will look almost identical on any computer.
Isn't that kind of like saying that the only advantage of pre-sliced bread
is that it comes already sliced? I mean, that's kind of the whole point of
PDF.
Actually, it's more than just the fact that the PDF file looks the same on
all systems, it's the fact that it (should) look pretty much exactly the
way the author/designer intended it to look. I'd argue that PDF offers
many other benefits as well, but even if this were the only one, it's a
big one.
As a result, assuming the original design was good, you should also end up
with a document that is much more readable, in terms of font selection,
spacing, layout, leading, etc., than a simple plain text document.
I say this having been reminded just how spiffy PDF is after having spent
the last couple of hours searching for and reading various econometrics
articles, most of which were in PDF format. Having seen enough attempts at
rendering complex mathematical equations in ASCII, PDF is a major
improvement!
Tom Maycock
(wondering how long it would take to generate an online version of Chicago
Region's newsletter every month if it weren't for that handy "Export to
PDF" function!)
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