Duff Johnson’s PDF Perspective

Redaction has seemed like a timely subject for some time now. If you don’t know or care why, then you can just skip this piece.  Once again, I drag out and beat Adobe for not only choosing to ignore redaction as a significant business feature, but for making it way too easy for the under-educated user to screw up in a highly publicised manner.  The short version?  Much as it is “electronic document” software par excellence, don’t try to redact with Acrobat 7.0.  It could end in tears. There are, however, some really GREAT ways to go about redaction in PDF.  Anyhow, enough of my preview, here’s the article.

Ok, I admit it.  I’ve rewritten this article two or three different times over the past 5 years or so.  For whatever reason, I find the issue of how PDFs work with search engines wherever I go.  Many people who claim to know a lot about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tend to go a little slack in the jaw when it comes to SEO for PDF content. Oddly, there’s a dearth of information about search-engine optimization for PDF files, and certainly, Adobe offers precious little insight into the question.

I’d love to hear from people who have specific stories to tell about how Google isn’t indexing PDF files correctly - especially if you notice a difference between PDF Reference 1.5 and 1.6 PDFs. Please accompany your story with a link to the file in question.  I am NOT promising a reply, but I am conducting a little research study on the issue, and you may be able to help me pin down the variables, and possibly, even update this article someday.  Of course, by then, Google will (naturally) have tweaked their algorithms, but someone should be paying attention. Myself, I’d like to see Adobe actively monitoring this issue, perhaps even updating the Community as things change.  That’s a nice idea.  I sure hope it’s not just me and my spreadsheet.

First of all, let me say that I am guilty of all the lamest and most embarrassing typographical sins you could care to name.  Among my never-ending evil ways…

• “Receiving” becomes “Recieving”
• “Acknowledge” somehow cluelessly morphs into “Acknolege”

I could go on, but it gets too embarassing. (Actually, I think that’s “embarrassing”… right?)

Anyhow, the point is this:  It’s EASY to spell-check when typing directly into your Blog (or any other HTML form)… all you need is the Google Toolbar, which is more or less a must-have from my point of view.  Click the “spellcheck” button, and relax.  All you have to worry about now are all the false-positives, like my old friends…

• “its” for “it’s”
• “there” when I mean “their”

…OK, you get the point.  The last thing I want to say is this:  PLEASE point out any errors you find, spelling or grammar, on the site.  I will be only grateful, never defensive.  Unless… I LIKE it the way I did it, OK!!

What are “PDF tags” and why should I care? was published in February, 2006 on AcrobatUsers.com.  Of especial interest to government website managers and others who’ve been hearing that they need to comply with Section 508, this article delivers a basic overview of what accessibility means in the world of PDF, and why that might matter to you.

Thanks for visiting the PDF Perspective.

I’ve been working with PDF for over ten years on what I’ve often had occasion to think of as rather the sharper end of the stick. Since Acrobat 2.01, each time Adobe Systems or 3rd party developers came out with new PDF software, I was there to try to find a way to put it to use.

I got started with PDF and Acrobat for what I like to think of now as the best of reasons. My company, Document Solutions, Inc., was freshly minted to sell electronic document research tools to political campaigns (that’s another story), and wasn’t exactly awash in business. At the time, PDF was a newcomer, mainly focused on print-publishing, and only just beginning to spread its wings.

In March, 1996, we identified PDF as the technology of choice for the solutions we wanted to build… all we needed were some customers! Fortunately for us, the more we studied PDF, the more we knew that we had at our fingertips an extraordinary technology for electronic documents. We listened to our clients, translated their needs into features we could implement with PDF, and it was good.

Beginning with PDF document imaging and PDF-based CD-ROM development, DSI added capabilities as Adobe extended PDF. We busied ourselves with forms, tags, bookmarks, javascript, embedded movies… all the new tricks and gadgets available in the rapidly maturing Portable Document Format.

Today, I marvel at three things:

1. The world is awash in PDF. The technology is so important, even Microsoft wants to give it away for free.
2. Adobe hasn’t (yet) screwed PDF up. The technology still retains all the power of the original vision, and has grown steadily more potent, sophisticated and subtle with each major revision, with relatively minor deviations from the path of progress.
3. The fact that compared to HTML, XML, etc., PDF is typically woefully underutilized and poorly implemented.  Most PDF files are under-performing in their applications and frustrating users.  Don’t ever send me a PDF form to fill out if it doesn’t already have form-fields!

In this Blog, I’m going to try to offer tips, comments, suggestions, complaints, praise, interesting links, etc. That’s probably your minimum expectation. What I’m also going to try to offer, time and mental bandwidth permitting, is some of the perspective I’ve gained watching this industry grow.

Please let me know if you have any comments about this blog. I look forward to hearing from you.

Duff Johnson