Duff Johnson’s PDF Perspective

Pinch me, I’m back.

While news that Adobe is taking PDF itself to ISO did indeed percolate down to the Southern Ocean, I wasn’t paying that much attention.  I was instead taking in penguins, seals, ice, whales… and more good food than I deserve.

I’ll get back to business later with some reflections on what (if anything) PDF “standardization” might mean, both within and without the marketing domain.

But not now, thanks.

In Antarctica, we visited Elephant Island, where Shackleton’s men lived out some rough days, the Weddell Sea, Paradise Bay, the Lemarie Channel and other places of such beauty I can’t and won’t even try to describe them.  It was, and I recognize the term is grossly overused, awesome.

Those so inclined can check out Antarctica in 5 Minutes, my video offering on YouTube.  I’ve also posted a page of selected stills.

Taking a break from the trials and travails of PDF, I’m blogging from Antarctica today.  On board the Lindblad Endeavour, we are cruising around the Antarctica peninsula, stopping for icebergs, penguins (Emperor, Chinstrap, Gentoo, and Adele) and seals (Elephant, Fur, Weddell, Crabeater and Leopard).  As you can tell, getting out of the office is proving good for my knowledge of the natural world!

Even though I’m getting away from PDF, I can’t get away from email. Amazingly enough, the Endeavour possesses a satellite dish and for a modest (actually, not that modest) fee, my clients, partners, PDF buddies and friends can still chase me down here with a steady diet of email.  Hopefully, noone is offended if I’m less responsive as usual.  I’m busy taking photos, shooting video, tasting krill and generally having far too good a time to think about PDF, Acrobat, Adobe Systems or work in general.  Long overdue, my wife tells me. (She gets the photo credit here).

Some have asked why I wanted  to go someplace so cold during the winter.  Well, first, it’s far warmer in the Antarctica Peninsula today (around 30 F) than it is in Boston (-25 F).  Secondly, this is the only time of year when it is possible to visit Antarctica (at least as a tourist), since the period from November to February is about the only time when tourist vessels may approach the shore and islands of this part of the world.  For the rest of the year, the ice prevents any access to the penguin colonies and other points of interest.

I’ll be back next week, at which point I hope it’s a lot warmer in Boston than it is down here in the Antarctic Penninsula!

To give you an idea of the way I feel about Reader Extensions…

I was visiting a client this week. One of their graphic designers raises Ball Pythons, and (on request) brought one into the office during my visit. We got kind of cozy.

Anyhow… the POINT I’m trying to make is that the Extended Rights Manifesto has been updated with Article 10. To save you a click, here it is:

Article 10

Separate “form” rights from “save” rights. PDF forms are often used for document applications rather than as forms per se, as in CD-ROM interfaces, electronic brochures, and so on. These applications may require Extended Rights to import FDFs (for example), but do not require the ability to save a form. For these purposes, Acrobat Professional should be able to bestow form rights on a PDF without limitation or reservation. With these “pdf as application” rights applied, the default form-related warnings to the user when opening or closing the PDF would not occur.

In this way, it would become very easy to develop “application” PDFs using the full suite of forms functionality without interfering with a “real” forms oriented business-model for Extended Rights.

Two great minds, etc… As I was posting on the subject of PDF/UA (near and dear to my own heart), Leonard Rosenthal had just written a summary of the PDF Standards currently under development.

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!!

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