I would miss the little ruse tbh. Keep my computer guessing, it’s trying to know me too much lately.
Tell me you don’t use Pandoc without telling me you don’t use Pandoc.
To print, these days, you generate PostScript and fire that off to the printer.
PostScript -> PDF is a very light translation.
The biggest slight is not renaming print to Print/PDF and just shortcutting the same exact code.
Hey, if it works why fix?
You’re not lying to your computer. A PDF is a print. It’s just on screen instead of on paper.
Not on screen, on storage usually.
Because PDF is literally that, a compressed print. it is not for editing, forms or anything it is a representation of a print.
File → Export PDF?
What? Libreoffice has had this one since always.
Same with Word and any of the other Office products.
Seems like a standard feature in any document managing software.
Try that with a JPEG
Do I look like I know hwhat a JPEG is?
I just want a picture of a got-dang hot dog
I’d assume you have some image processing software that can create image containers, in which case it would most likely support PDF.
But yeah the question would be finding the one.
Ah but can you do that on a website?
The entire tech stack is a tactical mess
pdf is a print and typesetting format for printers. what’s crazy is that we’re using it for something other than that.
Almost as crazy as Adobe continuing to exist decades after purchasing Macromedia when it could not compete with Macromedia’s software on merit.
Personally, I think in dealing with text documents, we should only respect:
- Markdown
- Org
- Wikidot
- LaTeX
- Typst if you are a progressive zoomer
Everything else is mental illness.
Typst if you are a progressive zoomer
I’m a millenial (maybe even an older one but I won’t admit to that) and I just love typst.
Markdown is just content, but as soon as you want actual layouting, you’re in for trouble; sure you can post-process in pandoc and apply the result to some template, but you’re probably creating an abomination in the process. Oh, and I hate creating slightly bigger tables there. One of your columns got larger? Better adjust all your horizontal lines (at least for grid tables), which might be a pandoc markdown only feature. Yeah, there isn’t one single markdown, but multiple flavors: https://www.glukhov.org/documentation-tools/markdown/gfm-vs-commonmark-vs-pandoc-markdown/
LaTeX? Probably still the king of exact typesetting, but it has a lot of issues:
- compile times are really bad (especially with something like lualatex)
- TeX which is the foundation of LaTeX maybe isn’t how you’d design such a language today
- this includes error messages that aren’t helpful if you didn’t study CS and typesetting
- tables (though BIG THANKS to that brave soul who wrote tabularray, it saved my sanity in my last LaTeX project)
Though at least nowadays, you have options for creating accessible PDFs (I’m not a big fan of the idea myself, but there are environments where that support is mandatory, e.g. government contracting)
typst? I wrote my first bigger project in typst that did much more than I could ever do in LaTeX (generation of documentation from OpenAPI spec files) and I had way fewer issues than for LaTeX projects of lower complexity. Yeah there are still some areas that need improvement, but all in all it’s a breeze. With tinymist, writing stuff is just so nice, no waiting for your document to compile for 40 seconds, no, you get an instant preview, or a helpful error message.
I was a bit of a LaTeX guy but I haven’t touched it since I learned typst.
Typst is awesome, I myself maintain my CV in it. Haven’t done anything larger yet. Cool to see it’s getting more adoption!
You forgot women.
A woman is not a text document for you to edit at your pleasure and to crumple up and discard if she doesn’t please you. #WomenAsObjects
I love markdown. I take all my work notes in markdown on vim and my coworkers look at me like I have 3 heads.
I then view them in a markdown viewer and I get to interact with the checklists I made 😼
Rock on and watch them miss out on all the enjoyment!
I want to be able to make a document without page breaks.
No one prints shit, I just want an endless scroll in Word Docs.
One could say that PDFs allow unique copy protection features, which is true. However, one mustn’t forget that copy protection is yet to deserve it’s right to exist at all.
pocorgtfo has some pretty cool/scary examples of what a pdf is capable of hiding. One issue actually starts with a boot sector that is a playble game of tetris
that’s what happens when any file with a valid pdf header in it anywhere is a valid pdf…
History of PDF is basically: We need a standard format to get print jobs over there > Postscript > let’s add feature X > also feature y > make it do thing too! > uh oh, it’s gotten too powerful, security galore > reboot and slim it down > PDF > let’s add feature X > also feature y > …
I feel like websites tried to do the same with seperating CSS from the DOM, but then the web said, actually how about we invent webasm anyway…
Yes. PDF is an embrace - extended - extinguish job done on PostScript.
It’s not? The p stands for portable, which implies a digital format for software use. Maybe you’re thinking of postscript?
pdf is a postscript container format, yes.
Yep, but mainly meant for computer screens rather than paper, no?
No. It is designed for print. It is used for screens (that’s the crazy part). Something like HTML or epub is designed for screens. PDF later got extended with some features, that only make sense on screen but the original design is for print and it shows. For example everything has a fixed layout size (like paper). And most of the time the order of words got lost so you can not select text in a meaningful way (something that would not matter if it is printed).
Wait till I tell you what they’re doing with JavaScript.
you’re thinking of display postscript? i think that was an extension of the original language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_PDF
PDF was developed to share documents, including text formatting and inline images, among computer users of disparate platforms who may not have access to mutually-compatible application software.[2]
actually, you’re kinda right! didn’t know this before, but pdf started as a slimmed-down version of postscript that didn’t support all print features.
Confidently incorrect.Edit: apparently I kinda was actually.
This is funny. They’re correct.
Development of PDF began in 1991, when Adobe’s co-founder John Warnock wrote a paper for a project then code-named Camelot, in which he proposed the creation of a simplified version of Adobe’s PostScript format called Interchange PostScript (IPS).[1] Unlike traditional PostScript, which was tightly focused on rendering print jobs to output devices, IPS would be optimized for displaying pages to any screen and any platform.[1]
That’s interesting indeed. I knew it was about portability, being right there in the name, but I thought it was about being as compatible everywhere (any device) as possible, then over time also became the defacto way to share a printable document, then that use case waned in popularity since the mid aughts.
Strangely, this kinda makes sense. PDF is based on PostScript, which is a file type (also by Adobe) that gets sent to printers. It’s just skipping the final “send to printer” part and sends it to a file instead.
A fascinating thing (in a scary way) is that PostScript is technically a full programming language with loops, functions, logic, and a built-in font rendering and 2D graphics engine. When a document is printed using PostScript, your computer generates a script to lay out the page, that the printer runs in order to produce the document!
PDF is essentially “the safe parts” of PostScript - the same 2D graphics engine but with all the dynamic parts removed. PDFs are statically laid out when they’re created, rather than having to run arbitrary code to lay them out like PostScript does.
PDF does support JavaScript code, but it’s rarely used and needs to be granted permission to run. It’s not a core part of the format.
For printing, PCL has somewhat taken over and it’s less scary - it just has preset commands rather than allowing arbitrary code in a full programming language. PostScript is still used today for higher-end printers and print jobs though.
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Not just 2d, I’ve received some unholy pdfs with fully imbedded 3d models.
I forgot to mention that PDF added new features on top of PostScript, including 3D models.
it is at least theoretically possible to boot from a PDF.
You can run doom on a pdf
Ok but that’s a really low bar, you could just list on what Doom can’t run :).
Also if you print doom.pdf, does the printer run it like this
or like this
?
A fascinating thing (in a scary way) is that PostScript is technically a full programming language with loops, functions, logic, and a built-in font rendering and 2D graphics engine.
It also had a extension to create NextStep UI with it.
It wasn’t really an extension… The nextstep user interface was just written in postscript and objective-C.
This is how the nextstep UI was so smooth and sharp and so well built for design, especially output to print. And how that translated to macOS (although the graphics display subsystem and macOS is based on the more advanced PDF, not postscript). It’s also part of the entire print sub systems, and how it was always so easy to create a PDF in the manner the OP suggests. That functionality was really only added to other operating systems later with plugins.
I’ve seen some pretty feature rich PDFs - before WebGIS got really good, people would often disseminate digital maps and geographic reports via GeospatialPDF which is an extension for PDF. You can do all kinds of stuff in there related to measuring distances, coordinate transformations and zoom/pan around the maps. Some of these files would end up being >500MB. Probably still used quite a lot field work I imagine.
Just as crazy as not being able to convert PDF “properly” to docx or other format…
I.e. not crazy at all. We can’t turn strawberry jam into fully formed fruits, either.
It isn’t crazy, Adobe has copyrighted PDFs.
They locked it down so hard. The only way to mess with it is with pirated software.
No, that’s not actually the issue. The PDF format is open.
The actual (non-)issue is that PDF is a format that is not meant to be converted or otherwise be edited. Let’s say you have a page of text with two columns. For a PDF, the concept of columns doesn’t exist. It’s just a series of individual letters placed exactly in a specific location on a page (and other graphical elements I guess, but that’s not the current point). I think strictly speaking PDFs don’t have to use the space character, since PDF doesn’t have the concept of a word, just individually placed letters.
Readers already have to do some heuristics to allow copying etc. but how are you going to convert this into a word file? How would you detect that there are text columns? What is a page header / footer and what is just fancy repeating letters?
Note that as soon as you get into more modern PDF, there’s also stuff like accessibility features (big fun!). There is support for Universal 3D.
Nobody sane would try to write a proper editor for PDF. You only write that if you want to make money off of it because a corporation somewhere doesn’t understand or control the pipeline that created a PDF that they need changed.
Onlyoffice (vibe coded
trash[that works]) allows you to do this. You can also just straight up edit most PDFs I’ve run through it. The exception is if its a collection of images, which many PDFs unfortunately are.If it works, then why is it vibe coded trash? Do you mean anything coded with AI is trash by default despite literally no one solving this problem manually for 30 fucking years?
I didn’t mean to say trash. That was muscle memory. Most of the vibe-coded projects I’ve used have been trash.
(There are other pdf editors, it’s not an unsolved problem, however as others pointed out pdf is a sort of print as a definition. Like saving a .txt as a .png. Whoever made a png/pdf did that purposely. Also you can even ocr any print/pdf for like 30 years.)
Because you are using the wrong tool. Libreoffice has a dedicated export to PDF button. Other tools do too.
I use File | Save As… in Microsoft Office to get PDFs.
Phones are shitty for that.
Some apps can’t save to a folder on your phone.
So you have to share it with an app but the file manager doesn’t support that.
So you share it with the printing app and then you print the pdf to your phone…
so do Adobe Illustrator and many CAD tools
Is OP still using winrar and notepad++?
Don’t diss Notepad++
I feel attacked.
What is the current meta for a syntax highlighting, regex capable, multi tab text editor that remembers my open files and can follow changes?Zed, over the top of my head. Gedit, gnome-text-editor. Maybe Kate too but I am unsure.
Also still the best way to record audio from anything, including MUSIC SOFTWARE to create a loop back sound device :) if it works, it works…
I mean why would you build some PDF export stuff when this basic functionality is already available in most browsers.
So if a native application doesn’t support PDF exports, I should open it in a browser?
No, a native (Windows at least) application with print support also has the ability to print to PDF just like the browser does.
All modern printers save documents as a multi-paged image (read: a PDF) in their memory before printing it onto paper. It’s trivial to make the print dialog save a PDF file because you’re telling it to give the file it just made back to the computer instead of giving it to the printer.
