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Adobe unveils multi-year vision for PDF, introduces Liquid Mode

blog.adobe.com

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Re: Adobe unveils multi-year vision for PDF, introduces Liquid Mode

#81

Post by masswerk »

Notably, this also means a lock-in in traditional layouts, as I doubt that an AI trained on the usual corpus would parse any non-traditional, maybe even dissociated layouts well. And, since there's apparently no way to control the reflow, this means serial presentation, all the way, just to make sure that your content will be presented in a meaningful way.

This is a bit ironic, since the USP of PDF has always been its ability to preserve individual presentations in a portable format, which made it also ideal for sharing and archiving non-traditional presentations of content.

Re: Adobe unveils multi-year vision for PDF, introduces Liquid Mode

#83

Post by citizenkeen »

ISL wrote: post #32
modernerd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more like a readability mode than a responsive website. It's a button you click to automatically make a fixed-layout PDF fluid and easier to read on mobile. You'd still author the document the same way without considering multiple device sizes. When the PDF needs to be reproduced faithfully (printing) it would still appear as the creator intended.

For many, the point of a PDF is that it appears the same way in all contexts. For device-dependent rendering, we have HTML.

I read a boatload of 2 column PDFs on my phone. Liquid Mode has been on PDF Reader on Android for... it feels like a year now? And it's fantastic. Without it I have to constantly pinch and zoom and swipe to the upper right to start a new column, etc.

I hate PDFs, but if I want to read a document I've stored in print fidelity from the 80s on my phone, Liquid is rock solid.

Re: Adobe unveils multi-year vision for PDF, introduces Liquid Mode

#84

Post by johnklos »

Adobe can't write secure or portable software for shit. They only ever want to be the stewards for something so they can make money off of it, often precisely to the detriment of the rest of the world.

No Internet content should EVER be loaded by Adobe software by default. Ever. Their security history has clearly shown us that.

Re: Adobe unveils multi-year vision for PDF, introduces Liquid Mode

#86

Post by iflp »

markonen wrote: post #16

A better title would be an ”ambitious multi-year vision for Adobe Reader” as this isn’t changing the PDF format at all: it is simply a new, buzzword-compliant (AI! ML!) content-reflowing UI for the reader app.

Content reflowing isn't easy for pdf files. Xodo has this functionality for years and it rarely get the line break right, so there is some use for ML in this. (Or do you happen to know a pdf reader that is better in this?)

Re: Adobe unveils multi-year vision for PDF, introduces Liquid Mode

#87

Post by Dalrymple »

a2tech wrote: post #77
fierarul wrote: post #47

Can Apple kill PDF too, please? I'm especially enraged at the PDF "forms" XFA or whatever that no software on this planet can open except Adobe Reader. And Adobe Reader even on macOS doesn't allow Print to PDF or something else to get a PDF in a "sane" format. I have to use a fake printer to trick Adobe Reader about this! Incredible!

Fun loophole that usually works--so Adobe Acrobat on the Mac doesn't let you use the default Print to PDF functionality, BUT if instead of selecting PDF you print to Postscript it will work.

Speaking of print-to-PDF, this is tremendously useful functionality, but fails on over half of the web pages out there. Is this due to some intentional action by the publisher, as a copy protection mechanism, or due to faults in the print-to-PDF driver? If due to faults in the driver, whose print-to-PDF driver is the best at implementing this functionality - I've tried several and they all seem to be sub-par.

Another PDF issue, does anyone except Adobe make a good PDF malware remover (from inside the PDF file). PDF malware seems to be rare, but could be a big problem if it ever catches on.

Re: Adobe unveils multi-year vision for PDF, introduces Liquid Mode

#88

Post by fierarul »

a2tech wrote: post #77
fierarul wrote: post #47

Can Apple kill PDF too, please? I'm especially enraged at the PDF "forms" XFA or whatever that no software on this planet can open except Adobe Reader. And Adobe Reader even on macOS doesn't allow Print to PDF or something else to get a PDF in a "sane" format. I have to use a fake printer to trick Adobe Reader about this! Incredible!

Fun loophole that usually works--so Adobe Acrobat on the Mac doesn't let you use the default Print to PDF functionality, BUT if instead of selecting PDF you print to Postscript it will work.

It does not work. Just like print to PDF, trying prostscript tells you:

> Saving a PDF file when printing is not supported. Instead, > choose File > Save.

Because Adobe went out of their way to prevent this to work.

Re: Adobe unveils multi-year vision for PDF, introduces Liquid Mode

#89

Post by barumi »

emteycz wrote: post #71
svachalek wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if this is sarcastic but FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats (spoiler, most of them are HTML/CSS)

Most books I saw were epub and pdf. They say epub is some XML, ok. But I don't see how the number of existing HTML based formats is relevant

> They say epub is some XML, ok.

Epub is HTML and CSS bundled in a zip file following a specific directory tree layout and containing a few metadata files.

Epub 3 is HTML5.

Open LibreOffice, create a doc, save it as Epub, and unzip the file. See for yourself.

Re: Adobe unveils multi-year vision for PDF, introduces Liquid Mode

#90

Post by xtiansimon »

Liquid Mode ?= Reader Mode. Ok. As long as I can still read Old PDFs, and the file size stays small. Why not.

I don’t see any way to improve tables in PDF. Most of the PDFs I deal with are invoices, statements, tabular reports.

As long as we’re on the topic of PDFs...what the heck is up with PDFs always asking if you want to save, even when you only opened them (no changes; using setting ‘Use only certified plug-ins’ & ‘do not show edit warnings’). Ridiculous.

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