[Coco] Re: Question - Rainbow Archives

[John E. Malmberg]

John R. Hogerhuis wrote:
> 
> But PDF is a popular open standard and there are free open source
> software viewers. Short of civilization coming to an end, we'll all be
> obsolete before the PDF format will.

PDF is not an open standard.  PDF is a proprietary format of the Adobe 
Corporation.  Adobe makes changes to the format at their whim, and 
updates what they make public about it at their convenience.

The Open Source PDF viewers are typically at least a generation behind 
what Adobe is providing, and thus can not display all content.

The Adobe Java viewer requires the host to have a java class that is 
only available on Macintosh, and that Apple has not given permission to 
redistribute.  So the Macintosh is the only platform that the "portable" 
Java viewer will run on.

If something is to be distributed in PDF and is expected to be viewed on 
platforms that Adobe is not directly supporting, then the author has 
test each page on the other viewers.

I had not heard of DjVU before these threads started, so I do not know 
how portable it is.

-John
wb8tyw(at)qsl.net
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