Preview in macOS Big Sur is destroying PDFs • Hacker News Board

Re: Preview in macOS Big Sur is destroying PDFs

#261

Post by cratermoon » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 3:04 AM UTC

sim_card_map wrote: post #259

wtallis wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PDF is one of the best things IMO - it's like a docker container for documents. The way the original authors intended it to be, including fonts and all the things that go into making a document. Sounds like you want the PDF/A standard for archiving: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A It forbids embedding audio and video and JavaScript, requires embedding all the fonts, forbids encryption and patent-encumbered comp…

We now have JavaScript in PDFs?..

We have for a long time, except it was called "ActionScript", and was used for another Adobe product: Flash animations.

Re: Preview in macOS Big Sur is destroying PDFs

#262

Post by cratermoon » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 3:06 AM UTC

junon wrote: post #182

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isnt including fonts basically code execution in and of itself?

Aside from potential vulnerabilities (bugs), no. Font formats are declarative. The various tables that define conditionals et al have no ability to run arbitrary code, and certainly do not have any concept of scripting and the like.

Well... https://www.extremetech.com/internet/308167-windows-zero-day...

Re: Preview in macOS Big Sur is destroying PDFs

#263

Post by cratermoon » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 3:09 AM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #158

ernst_klim wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally like to purchase books that are in PDF format, not epub/mobi PDF is abysmal for books though. 1) You can't scale fonts to fit various screen sizes. 2) It's waaay more expensive to interpret and render, so it affects battery life.

1) That's a feature, not a bug :) 2) Agreed, but that's a challenge for the engineers, not something we should blame the user for. Users have unequivocally spoken (Look up reviews for epub programming books on Amazon, usually they just want a PDF).

Not being able to scale the fonts for different resolutions is something only a young person with 20/20 vision would thinks is a feature.

Re: Preview in macOS Big Sur is destroying PDFs

#264

Post by leephillips » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 3:10 AM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #221

kall wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are web pages/archives really less fixed than PDFs if you don‘t want want them to be? I mean I know they are in practice, but I don‘t see why you couldn‘t use them as a fixed document format. Some contracts may need to be upheld between creator and consumer. If the consumer doesn‘t want to, well, that‘s freedom, isn’t it? Of course it is the most code executing document format to ever execute code, so if that was the…

Yea, you can use `position: fixed` or `position: absolute` with CSS + HTML but as you said, it doesn't dictate pages. Although, now that I think about it, why do we need pages :) Just fixed layout is good enough.

The pdf2htmlEX program does this. It creates exact renditions of PDFs in HTML, using embedded fonts and positioning each character. Personally, although it’s an amazing demonstration, I don’t really understand the purpose, when you can just distribute the PDF.

https://github.com/coolwanglu/pdf2htmlEX

Re: Preview in macOS Big Sur is destroying PDFs

#265

Post by leephillips » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 3:14 AM UTC

kall wrote: post #201

markandrewj wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally the PDF copy of a book is designed to fit the format of the final printed book. The PDF is even often the deliverable sent to press. If you are using something like an e-reader, or a smartphone, the PDF layout often doesn't translate well. Typesetting is also normally also done for ePub/Mobi, but the layout is tailored to the format of the device that the document will be read on. Although there are times w…

I do believe this happens, but I have yet to read a book that looks even reasonably typeset on Apple Books on a phone with anything larger than default. I know a PDF can‘t do that either, but that‘s the promise of these formats right? Between the most typography focused tech company and whatever the publisher puts into the file, they don‘t deliver.

What do you mean “PDF can‘t do that either”?

Re: Preview in macOS Big Sur is destroying PDFs

#266

Post by sn41 » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 3:17 AM UTC

ehutch79 wrote: post #241

sn41 wrote: post #232

There was something in macos Catalina that broke mupdf on my macbook pro. The view would occupy the lower left corner of the window, and something was clipping the view to the lower quadrant. I tried installing from source, changing the gl library etc. But it was the same. Am done with Apple for now. M1 is a bit tempting, but I guess I will wait for the technology to mature, buy a Macbook Air, and run Linux on it.

Why would installing from source change things. Without finding/fixing the bug, you're just using the same compiled code as before

I was trying avoid library incompatibilities. Pulled everything from the repository and recompile with the latest libraries. I also tried a couple of different libraries. I gave up after a week or so. (What I did not do was to compile the libraries from the source as well.)

I really like mupdf so it was a big nuisance for me to lose that.

Re: Preview in macOS Big Sur is destroying PDFs

#267

Post by meibo » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 3:30 AM UTC

robertoandred wrote: post #258

mulmen wrote: post #134

I have learned to be scared of my MacBook. Seemingly safe behavior can cause permanent damage. It does completely unexpected things, apparently by design. I do not put my pictures in the ~/Pictures directory for fear of what the newest app will do to “improve” them for me. I fully expect it to apply lossy compression to my files without asking. This is after Photos or whatever it was called at the time mangled the da…

Do you have proof of iCloud deleting photos?

I assume these are a result of bad UX, at least in my personal experience.

iPhones used to/will(haven't had the pleasure in a year now) bother you quite heavily if you're at your iCloud storage cap to either upgrade or clean it out. Not a stretch that some users might not think long enough about the consequences.

Re: Preview in macOS Big Sur is destroying PDFs

#268

Post by cmiller1 » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 3:43 AM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #21

Why anyone treats PDF as anything but a write-once format is beyond me. It's so finicky that I'm not shocked bugs like this happen. The only programs I'd be reasonable sure wouldn't screw it up are Acrobat itself, and pdflatex and friends. I think we need a multi-image container format. It could be something that's literally a bunch of jpgs/pngs/pick your poison in a tar container, and given a new extension. OSes wou…

> The only programs I'd be reasonable sure wouldn't screw it up are Acrobat itself

Oh no, I've seen acrobat screw with it too

Re: Preview in macOS Big Sur is destroying PDFs

#269

Post by unfocused » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 3:49 AM UTC

I think the HN crowd has forgotten that the entire legal system uses PDFs, and in addition uses the redaction features of the likes of Adobe Acrobat, as well as others trying to squeeze in like FoxIT.

Redaction is huge in governments that have gone digital. Gone are the days where you print the paper, black it out, and then photocopy it.

I have worked with PDFs for a long time, and if you ever wanted compatibility, you had to use Adobe Pro, since there were so many bad PDFs with weird embedded stuff that only Adobe could read properly...because it was initially created in Adobe sigh

All other products try to catch up, but they can't clean up the mess that Adobe has left behind.

Re: Preview in macOS Big Sur is destroying PDFs

#270

Post by kalleboo » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 3:55 AM UTC

dkonofalski wrote: post #219

mulmen wrote: post #134

I have learned to be scared of my MacBook. Seemingly safe behavior can cause permanent damage. It does completely unexpected things, apparently by design. I do not put my pictures in the ~/Pictures directory for fear of what the newest app will do to “improve” them for me. I fully expect it to apply lossy compression to my files without asking. This is after Photos or whatever it was called at the time mangled the da…

Those things are literally not possible to happen without your intervention... ಠ_ಠ

Yeah, macOS does not touch files in Pictures or Music, only files that you've explicitly imported into the Photos or Music/iTunes apps. And it definitely doesn't silently delete photos from iCloud, if that was common it would be a major bug that would make the news.