why I hate PDF

OK, first of all, I know they are good for some things. Hooray.

What I rebel against is what I call the PDF mindset. Like when you have to send out a PDF when a simple JPG would do the same thing, but way back in the beginning some idiot said "we'll send you a PDF!" so now you have to send the PDF because "that's the way it's done".

I also hate clicking a link and not realizing it is going to take you to a PDF that will cause your browser to snap to attention and start popping up little windows and opening Acrobat and the little spinning ball of doom starts spinning and you're screwed!


DUDE! Check it out! I just figured out how to push an image down into text! If this thing actually shows up on the blog the way I am seeing it in the "dashboard".

So anyway, many times the information contained in the stupid PDF could just as easily have been presented as a regular web page. The U.S. government is REALLY bad about unnecessarily PDF-ing stuff.

BUT - like I said, SOME things are what PDF was made for. Like that functionsuite info. I just ditched the PDF without really thinking much about it , before I even understood what was going on. That is how much I hate PDFs.

Then Benny got all whiney about it, so I contacted Alison at functionsuite, and she sent me a link to a better site than the one I linked to Monday. She is also sending me a DVD thing that should contain lots of info to make Benny happy.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oops. Looks like I clicked on Andy Rooney's blog by mistake...

"Did you ever NOTICE that some people send you a PDF when a simple JPG would do? Why is that? It's really annoying. People who don't change the toilet paper roll when it runs out—that's another thing I hate."

Anonymous said...

Well too bad, mister.
Your "little spinning ball of doom" didn't push down into the text.

You are also right about the merciless "shoving aside" of the little workhorse jpeg. But many people "new" to the computer world are comfortable with PDFs because EVERYBODY has Acrobat on their machine.

I also hate it when you send people, like, an EPS vector file or something, and they e or call you back and say "I can't open it."
Well, DUH, you dumbass, I told you to forward it on to your printer because it was the type of file he needed. I also included a jpeg for you to see what it looked like.

They just don't get it. " I C A N ' T O P E N I T . "

Mark Martin said...

YES IT DID!
The $#$#@%$# Ball of Doom is below the third paragraph!
At least it is on *MY* browser.

What do you mean EVERYBODY has Acrobat? I don't have it on my mac at home. That's ANOTHER reason I hate PDFs!

jr - I challenge your manhood!

Mark Martin said...

PS - the "I CAN'T OPEN IT" vector-challenged...
Been there, honey!!! Ohmigod, non-graphic-heads are SOOOO SLOOOWW!!!!!

Mike Dobbs said...

I agree with Mark. I get press releases all the time that are PDFs that HAVE NO FRICKIN' BUSINESS being PDFs. All they have to be is in the body of an e-mail or a an MS Word file. Nice and simple.

I also love it when people make a PDF that you can't cut or paste from....you have to print the rat-soup drinkin' thing and then re-type it!

PDFs suck.

Anonymous said...

I shall pretend to be the voice of reason here. Seems to me that what it amounts to is not that PDFs inherently suck. They have some perfectly legitimate uses (e.g., for selling articles online while keeping the appearance of the original printed page -- JPGs wouldn't be so good for that, nor would Word). What sucks (or possibly "sux" if you're MM) is the inappropriate uses thereof (e.g., press releases -- what kind of dolt thinks that he/she/it needs to distribute these as PDFs!?!? Doesn't everyone know that these should be printed out and stapled to $100 bills?).

And of course what also sucks/sux/suqs is expecting MM to download a freeware program to his home computer so that he can open the darn things! Why, of all the NERVE!!! I could just STAMP MY LITTLE FEET!!!

(Must go lie down now. The emotions are too much for me.)

-- NB

Jed Alexander said...

I love PDFs so much I'm gonna marry 'em!

I love PDFs so much I bought the company!

I love PDFs so much I made semen!

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