pdf is a print and typesetting format for printers. what’s crazy is that we’re using it for something other than that.
History of PDF is basically: We need a standard format to get print jobs over there > Postscript > let’s add feature X > also feature y > make it do thing too! > uh oh, it’s gotten too powerful, security galore > reboot and slim it down > PDF > let’s add feature X > also feature y > …
It’s not? The p stands for portable, which implies a digital format for software use. Maybe you’re thinking of postscript?
pdf is a postscript container format, yes.
Yep, but mainly meant for computer screens rather than paper, no?
No. It is designed for print. It is used for screens (that’s the crazy part). Something like HTML or epub is designed for screens. PDF later got extended with some features, that only make sense on screen but the original design is for print and it shows. For example everything has a fixed layout size (like paper). And most of the time the order of words got lost so you can not select text in a meaningful way (something that would not matter if it is printed).
you’re thinking of display postscript? i think that was an extension of the original language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_PDF
PDF was developed to share documents, including text formatting and inline images, among computer users of disparate platforms who may not have access to mutually-compatible application software.[2]
Confidently incorrect.
actually, you’re kinda right! didn’t know this before, but pdf started as a slimmed-down version of postscript that didn’t support all print features.
Strangely, this kinda makes sense. PDF is based on PostScript, which is a file type (also by Adobe) that gets sent to printers. It’s just skipping the final “send to printer” part and sends it to a file instead.
A fascinating thing (in a scary way) is that PostScript is technically a full programming language with loops, functions, logic, and a built-in font rendering and 2D graphics engine. When a document is printed using PostScript, your computer generates a script to lay out the page, that the printer runs in order to produce the document!
PDF is essentially “the safe parts” of PostScript - the same 2D graphics engine but with all the dynamic parts removed. PDFs are statically laid out when they’re created, rather than having to run arbitrary code to lay them out like PostScript does.
PDF does support JavaScript code, but it’s rarely used and needs to be granted permission to run. It’s not a core part of the format.
For printing, PCL has somewhat taken over and it’s less scary - it just has preset commands rather than allowing arbitrary code in a full programming language. PostScript is still used today for higher-end printers and print jobs though.
A fascinating thing (in a scary way) is that PostScript is technically a full programming language with loops, functions, logic, and a built-in font rendering and 2D graphics engine.
It also had a extension to create NextStep UI with it.
It wasn’t really an extension… The nextstep user interface was just written in postscript and objective-C.
This is how the nextstep UI was so smooth and sharp and so well built for design, especially output to print. And how that translated to macOS (although the graphics display subsystem and macOS is based on the more advanced PDF, not postscript). It’s also part of the entire print sub systems, and how it was always so easy to create a PDF in the manner the OP suggests. That functionality was really only added to other operating systems later with plugins.
I’ve seen some pretty feature rich PDFs - before WebGIS got really good, people would often disseminate digital maps and geographic reports via GeospatialPDF which is an extension for PDF. You can do all kinds of stuff in there related to measuring distances, coordinate transformations and zoom/pan around the maps. Some of these files would end up being >500MB. Probably still used quite a lot field work I imagine.
Because you are using the wrong tool. Libreoffice has a dedicated export to PDF button. Other tools do too.
Phones are shitty for that.
Some apps can’t save to a folder on your phone.
So you have to share it with an app but the file manager doesn’t support that.
So you share it with the printing app and then you print the pdf to your phone…
so do Adobe Illustrator and many CAD tools
Is OP still using winrar and notepad++?
Don’t diss Notepad++
I feel attacked.
What is the current meta for a syntax highlighting, regex capable, multi tab text editor that remembers my open files and can follow changes?
All modern printers save documents as a multi-paged image (read: a PDF) in their memory before printing it onto paper. It’s trivial to make the print dialog save a PDF file because you’re telling it to give the file it just made back to the computer instead of giving it to the printer.
I mean why would you build some PDF export stuff when this basic functionality is already available in most browsers.
So if a native application doesn’t support PDF exports, I should open it in a browser?
No, a native (Windows at least) application with print support also has the ability to print to PDF just like the browser does.
I think this is more of an expression of more people printing (and it being prominent in the UI than anything else).
