Chris_Parsons ([info]chris_parsons) wrote,
@ 2007-08-14 12:33:00
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Current location:Work
Current mood:angry
Current music:Club - Deep Inside
Entry tags:microsoft

WTF Microsoft? Just WTF?!?
I'm currently using Office 2007 - it's a nice package, though the more I learn and experience the angrier and angrier I'm getting. I'm not talking about Open Office XML right now, but about their absolute failure to implement ISO 19005-1 (PDF/A) in their .pdf extension.

This ISO is intended to identify a profile so that the document can be reproduced on screen in forthcoming years. This requires all elements of the document to be self-contained, which includes the fonts, images, text, and colour information. As a result, .pdf files that accord with this standard tend to be bulkier that normal.

Now, in the options for saving to .pdf files in Office 2007 you can either bitmap the text for when fonts are not included OR you can be ISO 19005-1 (PDF/A) compliant. Microsoft defaults to the former, which causes all kinds of problems if you choose to save to a .pdf using the Calibri font that Word defaults to because when you open a .pdf file in a web browser without ticking the latter option the file doesn't open properly. The second that you select ISO 19005-1, you can make .pdf files web friendly.

I understand that Microsoft wants to replace .pdf. with XPS, but wanting to replace an existing standard with your own should not mean that you just break the competitor's file formats!!!




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PDFs aren't so portable
[info]falseprophet81
2007-08-14 05:27 pm UTC (link)
I do a lot of work with PDFs. I have used countless different applications to create PDF including various Adobe products, the MS Office X PDF utilities, the PDF Create and such. Each one of them creates PDFs in a slightly different way. It also gets very frustrating when Adobe Acrobat and Mac Preview read PDF in a slightly different.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Re: PDFs aren't so portable
[info]chris_parsons
2007-08-14 05:40 pm UTC (link)
The only thing that would (likely) be worse than continuing to use PDFs as the most common way of sharing information would be to transition to MS' XPS - it's bound up in all the OOXML shite that they're pushing in Office 2K7. That said, if OOXML is approved by the ISO XPS will likely be something that more and more software companies start bundling.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: PDFs aren't so portable
[info]falseprophet81
2007-08-14 10:14 pm UTC (link)
I have to agree with you on that. The issue of document portability is an interesting one. It shouldn't still be as big of an issues as it is. I think much of this comes from companies, users and user communities being stubborn as hell. No one group is completely to blame.

(Reply to this) (Parent)


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