"Save a tree" with the WWF's new unprintable "green" PDF format

I think it's a good idea in principle, make it available and let the market decide. No windows yet? Foolish. But: no samples, no specifications, no source code, no technical details...no thanks.

Well, you can find one sample: http://www.saveaswwf.com/en/press.html But not many English readers are going to download a document in German. As for the printing, it just looks like a limited document permission with an secret password. Ooooh, a secret password, on PDF specification 1.3.

Removal instructions: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Adobe/Gallery/anon21jul01-pdf-enc...

Almost 100% recyclable waste - with the exception of commercial glossy print (I hate glossy print) almost all paper products nowadays are recyclable.

I'd attack the horrifyingly wasteful, and deceptively un-recyclable bottling industry. Depending on the recycling capabilities of your area, if you throw away plastic soda bottles with the cap on, it very well could go into the landfill.

These sort of 'green' gimmicks really annoy me. I'm a strong supporter of being environmentally conscious and taking actions to minimize our environmental footprint. However I am a bigger supporter of the idea that if you are going to take an action, make it really count and for it to be long lasting.

Virtually no-one is going to download a unique .wwf file viewer (and most office environments where pdf usage would be rife are probably locked down anyway). So straight away it fails. Greenies will often say that this sort of campaign builds 'awareness', and that it's not really about results - which is exactly what annoys me - we seldom need more awareness about issues, what we need is real practical ways to make a difference.

Instead of 'creating' a .wwf format, why not base their campaign around educating people how to turn on the built-in 'disable print' capability that is part of the standard pdf format?!? They achieve their 'gimmick' around paper conservation, but also actually give people the knowledge on how to actually make an ongoing 'difference' since pdfs will be around for a long time, unique .wwf viewers won't.

I'm heartened to see that pointless gestures don't fly with this crowd. Not one single supportive comment in the entire block.

It's not that simple, it's on the desktops in most offices already it's not that I want to use it but most offices have it installed so it makes it hard to get away from them. It's not Adobe I dislike it's the pdf itself, well yeah Adobe too.