if you could pick a standard format for a purpose what would it be and why?
e.g. flac for lossless audio because…
(yes you can add new categories)
summary:
- photos .jxl
- open domain image data .exr
- videos .av1
- lossless audio .flac
- lossy audio .opus
- subtitles srt/ass
- fonts .otf
- container mkv (doesnt contain .jxl)
- plain text utf-8 (many also say markup but disagree on the implementation)
- documents .odt
- archive files (this one is causing a bloodbath so i picked randomly) .tar.zst
- configuration files toml
- typesetting typst
- interchange format .ora
- models .gltf / .glb
- daw session files .dawproject
- otdr measurement results .xml
Literally any file format except PDF for documents that need to be edited. Fuck Adobe and fuck Acrobat
Isn’t the point of PDF that it can’t (or, perhaps more accurately, shouldn’t) be edited after the fact? It’s supposed to be immutable.
Unless you have explicitly digitally-signed the PDF, it’s not immutable. It’s maybe more-annoying to modify, but one shouldn’t rely on that.
And there are ways to digitally-sign everything, though not all viewing software has incorporated signature verification.
No, it’s too preserve formatting when distributed. Editing is absolutely possible, always were, it’s just annoying to parse the structure when trying to preserve the format as you make changes
No, although there’s probably a culture or convention around that.
Originally the idea was that it’s a format which can contain fonts and other things so it will be rendered the same way on different devices even if those devices don’t have those fonts installed. The only reason it’s not commonly editable that I’m aware of is that it’s a fairly arcane proprietary spec.
Now we have the openspec odt which can embed all the things, so pdf editing just doesn’t really seem to have any support.
The established conventions around pdfs do kind of amaze me. Like contracts get emailed for printing & signing all the time. In many cases it would be trivial to edit the pdf and return your edited copy which the author is unlikely to ever read.
Hold on. I’m applying for a mortgage and I want the bank to pay off my loan for me after 6 months of payments.
Why would you use acrobat? I haven’t used it in many years and use PDFs all the time
What do you use?
Depends on the platform I’m on. There are so many options. SumatraPDF on windows, whatever default app pop os has, preview on Mac, builtin android PDF viewer. I assume you’re on windows because you mentioned acrobat. There are several options beside sumatra. I think many are decent.
Ah I was more looking for alternative editors rather than viewers, I usually just use my web browser to view them
Ah, yeah I normally would only need to do that in the context of signing a contract, which I do using Gimp or Photoshop.
Have you tried these? https://www.lifewire.com/best-free-pdf-editors-4147622
I have not, I’ll give some of them a try!
Firefox can edit PDFs , although I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not in depth
Is foxit still around? I didn’t mind that one on windows.
Yup an it also one of best for linux
Acrobat Reader is actually great for filling out forms.
Even if the “pdf” is actually just a potato quality photo of what was at some time a form, you can still fill it out in Acrobat Reader.
Generally in windows I prefer sumatra pdf as a reader, but I keep acrobat around for this purpose.