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).
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
Yep, but mainly meant for computer screens rather than paper, no?
mogoh@lemmy.ml 1 hour ago
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).
zikzak025@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
PDF is designed for user interfaces, actually.
lime@feddit.nu 1 hour ago
you’re thinking of display postscript? i think that was an extension of the original language.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Confidently incorrect.
lime@feddit.nu 1 hour ago
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.