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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

#31

Post by pointlessone »

darrenf wrote: post #7

It's still available at this Adobe URL: https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/standards/p... " As distributed by Adobe after adoption as ISO 32000-1:2008, with permission of ISO. " [0] Not to mention ISO unsurprisingly host it, which I would also consider authoritative: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:32000:-1:ed-1:v1:en [0] https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd0002...

How did you find the link on opensource.adobe.com? The used to host other standards, too (e.g. font formats).

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

#32

Post by cwt137 »

Cerium wrote: post #18
Anunayj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

kinda funny you need a pdf reader to read the pdf specification :)

Yeah, how did they bootstrap the first pdf reader? /s It must have been hard guessing at the spec until you could read it properly.

Maybe they used Postscript?

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

#33

Post by mdaniel »

Anunayj wrote: post #8
darrenf wrote: post #7

It's still available at this Adobe URL: https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/standards/p... " As distributed by Adobe after adoption as ISO 32000-1:2008, with permission of ISO. " [0] Not to mention ISO unsurprisingly host it, which I would also consider authoritative: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:32000:-1:ed-1:v1:en [0] https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd0002...

kinda funny you need a pdf reader to read the pdf specification :)

I somehow thought early versions of the PDF spec were published as a .ps version for that very reason, but my duck-fu is failing me finding any such link. It may require wayback-fu and that's beyond my level-of-effort :-)

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

#34

Post by hoofedear »

prima-facie wrote: post #29
mr337 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why are these documents a paid product? Are there other ways to access it? I figured standardization documentation would be free to encourage adoption.

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

#35

Post by hunter2_ »

HWR_14 wrote: post #27
hunter2_ wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

CSS flow control and specifying an `id` attribute value as a URL fragment would be my solutions to those particular concerns, if it weren't the case that our context here is capturing from software that offers printing but doesn't offer exporting to HTML very well. I think the solution might be "bring it to a good web dev and have a solid punch list."

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

#36

Post by pajko »

yardshop wrote: post #26
zdw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sometimes even the binary fragments are compressed plain text.

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

#37

Post by svat »

darrenf wrote: post #7

It's still available at this Adobe URL: https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/standards/p... " As distributed by Adobe after adoption as ISO 32000-1:2008, with permission of ISO. " [0] Not to mention ISO unsurprisingly host it, which I would also consider authoritative: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:32000:-1:ed-1:v1:en [0] https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd0002...

Apart from the PDF32000_2008.pdf (the ISO version), Adobe used to have a pdf_reference_1-7.pdf at https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdf_ref... which is the version before it got ISO-ized. The ISO version is "substantially the same" except for typesetting and small differences in wording, but I found the Adobe version much more of a pleasure to read. Comparing them is a good exercise in how much these small differences matter.
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