Adobe hands over copyright to PDF format
Posted by Kevin Horrocks on 04 July 2008 - 16:50 · 47 comments & 16093 views
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Full name: Kevin Horrocks
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Full name: Kevin Horrocks
Forum name: Horrocks
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(10 replies)
#2 Posted by TRC on 04 Jul 2008 - 17:09
- Great, maybe we'll finally get a good open source alternative to that bloated monstrosity they make.
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#2.2 Posted by Marshalus on 04 Jul 2008 - 17:26
- (TRC said @ #2)Great, maybe we'll finally get a good open source alternative to that bloated monstrosity they make.
Have you tried Adobe Reader 9? -
#2.3 Posted by Skynetfuture on 04 Jul 2008 - 17:50
- ( Marshalus said @ #2.2)(TRC said @ #2)Great, maybe we'll finally get a good open source alternative to that bloated monstrosity they make.
Have you tried Adobe Reader 9?
Reader 9 is great i have tried it personally it is huge improvement over the bloated pig Reader 8
it run instantly
i have uninstalled the ol' foxit reader -
#2.4 Posted by TRC on 04 Jul 2008 - 18:53
- I haven't tried 9 yet, after version 8's updater started causing my CPU to freeze at 100% I removed all things Adobe from my system. I've heard 9 is a big improvement, but as far as the startup time I think that's mainly because it loads itself into memory at Windows startup via Adobe Speed Launcher.
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#2.5 Posted by jameswjrose on 04 Jul 2008 - 20:48
- Thanks for the heads up on Reader 9, it is much faster than 8.
As for the idea of a very lightweight reader, I'm all for it. THe issue becomes can a lightweight reader degrade gracefully if it does not have a specific ability that the full blown reader has an the specific document requires. If I was writing some such Reader I would have the LWR open the full blown version of Adobe Reader. That way the end-user doesn't have to do anything. -
#2.6 Posted by tiagosilva29 on 04 Jul 2008 - 22:59
- What does it has to do with having a PDF standard?
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#2.7 Posted by night_stalker_z on 04 Jul 2008 - 23:35
- (TRC said @ #2.4)I haven't tried 9 yet, after version 8's updater started causing my CPU to freeze at 100% I removed all things Adobe from my system. I've heard 9 is a big improvement, but as far as the startup time I think that's mainly because it loads itself into memory at Windows startup via Adobe Speed Launcher.
You can remove Adobe Speed Launcher and it will still start up as fast. Also, it doesn't seem to hang your browser when it opens a PDF. -
#2.8 Posted by HalcyonX12 on 05 Jul 2008 - 15:40
- (TRC said @ #2)Great, maybe we'll finally get a good open source alternative to that bloated monstrosity they make.
Actually there's already xPDF, Evince, Foxit, and more. There's a lot of support for PDF even when Adobe held the copyrights. But now it will get even better
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#2.9 Posted by Magallanes on 06 Jul 2008 - 14:17
- (tiagosilva29 said @ #2.6)What does it has to do with having a PDF standard?
Nothing much else.
To be a ISO standard is not equal to be opensource, this can help to developer a alternative but still adobe can break the standard, left out of the standard key features or simply giving a inconsistent and hard to follow standard. -
#2.10 Posted by Havin_it on 06 Jul 2008 - 16:00
- (jameswjrose said @ #2.5)Thanks for the heads up on Reader 9, it is much faster than 8.
As for the idea of a very lightweight reader, I'm all for it. THe issue becomes can a lightweight reader degrade gracefully if it does not have a specific ability that the full blown reader has an the specific document requires. If I was writing some such Reader I would have the LWR open the full blown version of Adobe Reader. That way the end-user doesn't have to do anything.
In one sense, there always was a light-weight reader: just disabling all the never-needed plugins gave it a massive speed boost, I remember there were (are?) freeware programs that could do this for you and made using Reader a perfectly bearable experience.
Perhaps the best thing they could do is just have Reader scan the document and only load the plugins it needs?
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(2 replies)
#3 Posted by waldenasta on 04 Jul 2008 - 18:29
- foxit is for me...wish I discovered it earlier.
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#3.1 Posted by Tha Bloo Monkee on 04 Jul 2008 - 21:56
- Same here! Great piece of software.
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#4 Posted by Hak Foo on 04 Jul 2008 - 18:41
- I like SumatraPDF except that it's not 1000% compatible (I've seen at least one PDF which renders wrong-- a fine line is missing), and it doesn't want to associate with the .pdf file type in Vista, with its own "make default reader" command.
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(3 replies)
#5 Posted by Hak Foo on 04 Jul 2008 - 18:41
- I like SumatraPDF except that it's not 1000% compatible (I've seen at least one PDF which renders wrong-- a fine line is missing), and it doesn't want to associate with the .pdf file type in Vista, with its own "make default reader" command.
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#5.1 Posted by saachi on 05 Jul 2008 - 22:39
- (Hak Foo said @ #5)...and it doesn't want to associate with the .pdf file type in Vista, with its own "make default reader" command.
You need to "right-click > Run as Administrator" for that to work. -
#5.2 Posted by kaiwai on 08 Jul 2008 - 00:41
- (saachi said @ #5.1)(Hak Foo said @ #5)...and it doesn't want to associate with the .pdf file type in Vista, with its own "make default reader" command.
You need to "right-click > Run as Administrator" for that to work.
Thats one of the reasons I can't stand Windows, file type association should be allowed on a per-user basis. Why can't Windows do that? -
#5.3 Posted by Gumboot on 08 Jul 2008 - 13:29
- (kaiwai said @ #5.2)Thats one of the reasons I can't stand Windows, file type association should be allowed on a per-user basis. Why can't Windows do that?
It can do that (and I think has been able to since at least XP). I just checked: using the built-in windows "Set Associations" control panel does not require a UAC prompt on Vista.
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#6 Posted by excalpius on 04 Jul 2008 - 19:42
- You couldn't have done it a few years ago when everyone was begging you too and you could have had a huge impact by doing it, could you, Adobe?
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(2 replies)
#7 Posted by P1R4T3 on 04 Jul 2008 - 19:54
- ... or they're seeing xps as a future menace i think.
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#7.1 Posted by tele-fragd on 05 Jul 2008 - 02:54
- Just what I was thinking. PDF is a great format and this'll definitely help to cement its use for many years to come
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#9 Posted by Angel Blue01 on 04 Jul 2008 - 21:05
- So now it'll be easy to make free and/or freeware software that can do all the fancy things that Acrobat can!
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#10 Posted by betasp on 04 Jul 2008 - 21:48
- pdfcreator is a good open source pdf creation engine. It works just like acrobat in the it creates a pdf printer. See sourceforge.
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#11 Posted by SimNet on 04 Jul 2008 - 21:52
- sumatrapdf aka sumocrappdf sucks so bad.
(that would be the end of my comment, but i will expand to avoid wars)
The reason being: it takes too long to load and "render" images/text, on my 1.6ghz Dual 1GB ram, it takes it like 10-20 seconmds to render a image, while adobe 9 does it instantly or few secs.
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#12 Posted by darkpuma on 04 Jul 2008 - 22:10
- what do they get out of this move? and good for them either way.
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(4 replies)
#13 Posted by QuarterSwede on 04 Jul 2008 - 23:48
- Beacause I'm on OS X, PDF's have always been apart of the system. However, hopefully now I won't have to send my resume's in as .doc because the moron interviewers don't like PDF's!?
Last edited by QuarterSwede on 04 Jul 2008 - 23:59 -
#13.1 Posted by NeoTrunks on 05 Jul 2008 - 03:40
- A lot of employers use software to screen resumes. Chances are, many of them don't even get to an actual person before they're discarded. From what I've heard, a lot of these screener programs are not compatible with the PDF format. Perhaps that may now change soon.
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#13.2 Posted by QuarterSwede on 05 Jul 2008 - 05:39
- (NeoTrunks said @ #13.1)A lot of employers use software to screen resumes. Chances are, many of them don't even get to an actual person before they're discarded. From what I've heard, a lot of these screener programs are not compatible with the PDF format. Perhaps that may now change soon.Yeah I knew that. Personally, if a company is going to use a screening program, I don't want to work for them anyway. And if it needs to be in .doc they are using the wrong program to read resumes. PDF's are suppose to be used for this sort of thing you moron companies, not .DOC!!!
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#13.3 Posted by +rm20010 on 06 Jul 2008 - 18:47
- I question employers who think it's professional to send resumes in Word documents.
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#13.4 Posted by kaiwai on 07 Jul 2008 - 23:30
- (rm20010 said @ #13.3)I question employers who think it's professional to send resumes in Word documents.
I second that. I want my formatting to all remain the same so that when the employer receives it, they see it in the same way I do. All the employer has to have is one slight difference in settings and all my layout gets screwed up because of it.
Then again, if employers are using 'automated tools' for their selection process, they deserve to get the 'bottom of the barrel' candidates.
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(1 reply)
#14 Posted by mayamaniac on 05 Jul 2008 - 01:03
- great, now what about flash?
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#14.1 Posted by kaiwai on 07 Jul 2008 - 23:10
- (mayamaniac said @ #14)great, now what about flash?
QFT
If anyone has watched, I'm sure they're lining up flash paper as a replacement for PDF.
They've opened up the specifications to Flash, but even so, there is a mountain of work that needs to be done in implementation. IMHO they should just opensource the Flash plugin - there is no value in it. The value is derived from the tools that make the content, all the plugin is, is a way for the end user to access that content. Its like a television in otherwords. The value is what comes to the television, not the television itself.
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#15 Posted by HawkMan on 05 Jul 2008 - 03:49
- Maybe now MS can make save to PDF an integrated part of Office instead of a download plugin again.
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(3 replies)
#16 Posted by hardgiant on 05 Jul 2008 - 04:40
- PDF sucks if you only want to print out certain information and you can't move it around.
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#16.1 Posted by QuarterSwede on 05 Jul 2008 - 05:41
- That's the POINT!
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(2 replies)
#17 Posted by Kreuger on 05 Jul 2008 - 16:40
- Actually there's already xPDF, Evince, Foxit, and more. There's a lot of support for PDF even when Adobe held the copyrights. But now it will get even betterYes there are plenty of readers but as far as I know, not too many can edit and for free too.
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#17.1 Posted by +James7 on 06 Jul 2008 - 05:26
- (Kreuger said @ #17)Actually there's already xPDF, Evince, Foxit, and more. There's a lot of support for PDF even when Adobe held the copyrights. But now it will get even betterYes there are plenty of readers but as far as I know, not too many can edit and for free too.
OpenOffice 3 is supposed to have the ability to edit PDFs (and not just export to them). Looking forward to that! There is a free Linux program called PDFEdit but it is a bit tricky to use. -
#17.2 Posted by kaiwai on 07 Jul 2008 - 23:04
- (James7 said @ #17.1)(Kreuger said @ #17)Actually there's already xPDF, Evince, Foxit, and more. There's a lot of support for PDF even when Adobe held the copyrights. But now it will get even betterYes there are plenty of readers but as far as I know, not too many can edit and for free too.
OpenOffice 3 is supposed to have the ability to edit PDFs (and not just export to them). Looking forward to that! There is a free Linux program called PDFEdit but it is a bit tricky to use.
IIRC, the latest version of Evince (which uses the popper back end) is apparently meant to have editing abilities too.
Editing PDF from a programmers point of view is pretty difficult considering that it is doing something it was never designed to do - the idea of electronic forms an after thought in many cases.
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(2 replies)
#18 Posted by HalcyonX12 on 06 Jul 2008 - 18:13
- Now MS just has to hand OOXML over to the ISO... Well, if they're still persuing that I mean (since they adopted ODF).
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#18.1 Posted by RealFduch on 07 Jul 2008 - 13:51
- (HalcyonX12 said @ #1
Now MS just has to hand OOXML over to the ISO... Well, if they're still persuing that I mean (since they adopted ODF).
Why? OOXML is an ISO standard for some time already.
And Adobe threatened to sue MS if they allw export to PDF. -
#18.2 Posted by kaiwai on 07 Jul 2008 - 23:08
- (RealFduch said @ #18.1)(HalcyonX12 said @ #1Now MS just has to hand OOXML over to the ISO... Well, if they're still persuing that I mean (since they adopted ODF).
Why? OOXML is an ISO standard for some time already.
And Adobe threatened to sue MS if they allw export to PDF.
Apparently there are attempts to over turn it. Mind you, comparing OOXML to PDF, is comparing Apples with Orange. The more correct comparison would be PDF vs. XPS. IMHO Microsoft should submit XPS to a standards body.
As for OOXML, IIRC it is already an ECMA standard. I think the issue so many have with OOXML is the complexity (which is justifiable), if I was Microsoft I would provide a opensource implementation under *BSD licence (clean room implementation) and allow others to use that in their products. It would stop the whining from the OSS world, and Microsoft could point and say, "hey, it can be done".
"By releasing the full PDF specification for ISO standardization, we are reinforcing our commitment to openness", says Kevin Lynch, CTO at Adobe.
Most businesses use PDFs as the main way of transitioning from paper to electronic documentation, and now a slew of new readers, writers and development tools for the format will likely be unveiled in the near future thanks to the move.
The new PDF standard is called ISO 32000-1.