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Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

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Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#21

Post by hunter2_ »

innocenat wrote: post #20
hunter2_ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not cool [0]. It's funny how CMSes tend to offer "clean URL" configurations (meaning that everything after the origin is 100% controlled by the CMS user) for requests served dynamically (database queries) but requests served statically (public files on disk) often end up containing implementation-specific junk (e.g., "/sites/" in the case of Drupal). The magic that makes clean dynamic URLs (rewrite everything that is…

Drupal allow you to set private file mode, which has clean URL.

It's kind of clean in that it uses a URL based on a db value instead of the filename on disk, but it's still got CMS-specific junk in that it always starts with "/system/" (at least in D7, I haven't explored it in D9).

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#22

Post by hunter2_ »

HWR_14 wrote: post #17
fivea wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ironically, I wish they would publish it as HTML broken down by chapter and section. I wish there was an EPUB version of the document. Do PDFs support reflowable content?

I believe one of the selling points of PDFs was the absolute lack of reflowing content.

Right, as the point is to represent a physical document, paper and ink (or canvas, toner, whatever -- stuff that doesn't reflow).

Why anyone would use such a format for these situations, where the audience definitely cares way more about consuming it on an electronic device than printing it out, is... mind-boggling.

Of course, AI+ML to the rescue: Liquid Mode [0].

> Files are processed in our secure data servers and immediately deleted from our servers after the experience is generated.

[0] https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobat/android/en/lmode.h...

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#23

Post by iceblockderby »

The ISO released the 2.0 version of the specification that replaces the 1.7 standard.

"Although it is an open standard, one major difference compared with prior versions of PDF is that ISO now holds the copyright to the PDF specification and thus PDF 2.0 is not freely downloadable." [0]

It looks like DMCA requests are being issued to anyone that hosted the old specification, even open source projects [1].

[0] https://www.pdfa.org/resource/iso-32000-pdf/ [1] https://github.com/Hopding/pdf-lib#git-history-rewrite

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#24

Post by compressedgas »

fivea wrote: post #16
jeffreportmill1 wrote: post #5

Off topic, but man is that document hard to use as a reference. Ironically, I wish they would publish it as HTML broken down by chapter and section. (I have used that document a lot to write a custom PDF generator and parser in Java, using a downloaded copy)

> Ironically, I wish they would publish it as HTML broken down by chapter and section. I wish there was an EPUB version of the document. Do PDFs support reflowable content?

A PDF can be reflowed without reconstructive processing only if a PDF was generated as a Tagged PDF [1] and if the viewer supports reflowing.

[1]: Essentially a PDF with its own EPUB inside it, but unlike just having an attached EPUB, there is a map between the page layout of the PDF and the tags.

There are implementations of reconstructive reflowing that infer the layout block structure and reading order and can reflow a two column paper into a single column.

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#25

Post by mr337 »

iceblockderby wrote: post #23

The ISO released the 2.0 version of the specification that replaces the 1.7 standard. "Although it is an open standard, one major difference compared with prior versions of PDF is that ISO now holds the copyright to the PDF specification and thus PDF 2.0 is not freely downloadable." [0] It looks like DMCA requests are being issued to anyone that hosted the old specification, even open source projects [1]. [0] https:/…

Wow, I feel like that is a step back. This feels a lot like other protocols non free specs like J1939 that is over $1000USD.

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#26

Post by yardshop »

zdw wrote: post #12
geodel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its same with html spec I think.

HTML is somewhat human readable in a text editor, but PDF likely is not.

Actually a lot of the PDF format is plain text, but can contain binary streams. You can open a PDF in a text editor and see the header, and skip to the end and see the xref index and some other parts. The binary sections are enclosed in plain text start and end markers, but you probably won't be able to read much of the actual content this way since it will be compressed or encrypted.

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#27

Post by HWR_14 »

hunter2_ wrote: post #22
HWR_14 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe one of the selling points of PDFs was the absolute lack of reflowing content.

Right, as the point is to represent a physical document, paper and ink (or canvas, toner, whatever -- stuff that doesn't reflow). Why anyone would use such a format for these situations, where the audience definitely cares way more about consuming it on an electronic device than printing it out, is... mind-boggling. Of course, AI+ML to the rescue: Liquid Mode [0]. > Files are processed in our secure data servers and…

I've found people being precise about the flow of equations and text intermixed can be easier to read than reflowing content. Other than that, not so much.

Edit: Non-reflowing content also works well if you need to refer people to page numbers and paragraphs.

I look forward to playing with liquidmode at some point soon.

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#28

Post by layer8 »

jeffreportmill1 wrote: post #5

Off topic, but man is that document hard to use as a reference. Ironically, I wish they would publish it as HTML broken down by chapter and section. (I have used that document a lot to write a custom PDF generator and parser in Java, using a downloaded copy)

> hard to use as a reference

How so? I frequently reference specific sections, tables or pages of the spec at work.

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#29

Post by prima-facie »

mr337 wrote: post #25
iceblockderby wrote: post #23

The ISO released the 2.0 version of the specification that replaces the 1.7 standard. "Although it is an open standard, one major difference compared with prior versions of PDF is that ISO now holds the copyright to the PDF specification and thus PDF 2.0 is not freely downloadable." [0] It looks like DMCA requests are being issued to anyone that hosted the old specification, even open source projects [1]. [0] https:/…

Wow, I feel like that is a step back. This feels a lot like other protocols non free specs like J1939 that is over $1000USD.

PDF 2.0 is not cheap either: https://www.iso.org/standard/75839.html Definitely a step back.
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