"Open standard"?

I question the description of this proprietary thing as "open standard". If this is allegedly an "open standard", why can I not access the source code of a PDF document and make changes? For example, I need to correct typographical errors in a document, but the publisher used an extremely obscure font that I'm not able to find anywhere. If the font is embedded in the document, this shouldn't be a problem if this was an "open standard", it would only be a problem for a very proprietary application that deliberately tried to prevent the document from being "open" -- and in any case, I'd be happy to use a different font to make changes such as adding a comma, I couldn't care less about the font that's already used. I'm aware that older versions of Acrobat Pro did not prevent you from editing text if you didn't have the exact same font installed. Potbirohotballa (talk) 15:03, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Open standard does not mean any document can be opened and read by everyone. Open standard means the specifications for creating and reading documents are publicly available. --NeilN talk to me 16:02, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Add "PDF searchable image" concept to the article?

There are a important PDF concept in the digitalization and OCR markets, the "PDF Searchable Image". It is produced by, ex., "Acrobat Capture" and "Capture SDK" Adobe products.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Krauss (talk • contribs) 23:27:52, 18 Jun 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Virtually all computer-savvy people are well-aware of the large number of PDFs that have searchable text, when downloaded as eBooks, software manuals from major corporations, and other "professional" sources, and frustratedly aware also that their own home-generated PDFs are not searchable in such a manner. I'd be very surprised if a large proportion of readers of this article aren't here looking for an explanation. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 01:45, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Postscript and transparency

Ghostscript can handle transparency in PostScript documents. As I understand it, they have implemented the feature because Adobe Distiller support it (or rather enabled it: that is, introduced the syntax for transparent vector graphics into PostScript and enabled support for transparency in bitmap images, since Ghostscript already had support for transparency when rendering PDF-files).

So, just like PDF, at least some versions of PostScript (as implemented by not to ancient versions of GhostScript and Adobe Distiller) do support transparency. --81.234.126.60 (talk) 11:49, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why call it "Portable" Document Format?

This is a wonder119.85.246.160 (talk) 00:01, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I guess cause it is a Portable Document Format. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.71.63.46 (talk) 16:06, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Because the creators of PDF go to great lengths to make it possible for different people to view and print PDF files and see the same thing using different types of computers and different operating software.
This is not true of many file formats. Just for example, some versions of Microsoft Word create files that cannot be understood by other versions of Microsoft Word. This is not to pick on Microsoft Word, which is an amazing program IMO, but just to illustrate what is meant by saying that a PDF file is "portable".
Wanderer57 (talk) 16:13, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Disadvantages-abuse/misuse

I am surprised at the minimal mention of problems with PDF files most of which seem to come from a user's or application's misuse of the format, as is frequently the case with a "it can do anything" tool. While some PDF documents are excellent for printing most are horrible for viewing on a display. The format is hardly portable when it does not provide for presentation on device or even a windowed display which is not the same configuration as the author used. Many scanners/faxes create PDFs which are simply graphic images which would be much better represented by a graphic format like PNG. Even documents that are truly text are frequently generated with non-functional table of contents and pagination reflecting the author's original layout rather than the viewer's making navagation and simple scrolling impossible. The storage requirements for nearly PDF documents is extravagant to say the least. (Bring it on.) DG12 (talk) 19:48, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would also like to see a discussion of the limitations of PDF. On many computers I've used (in Korea), PDF crashed the system of simply would not down-load. Kdammers (talk) 03:47, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Recent versions not fully compatible with Windows XP

Recent versions of Adobe Acrobat are not fully compatible with Windows XP. Printing is particularily problematic. Characters are displaced by one ASCII code value!

PDF Exchange Viewer is a freeware that is fully compatible with Windows XP, Vista and 7. Printing using PDF Exchange Viewer is perfect.

Adobe must surely be aware of the problem but don't appear to want to fix it. As XP is still the most used operating system in the world (just), such an attitude reflects badly on the company. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.30.7.97 (talk) 14:21, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the file format, not about software by Adobe.--Oneiros (talk) 17:24, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merge GNU PDF into Portable_Document_Format#Implementations

In lieu of prod, the GNU PDF article should merge into the section Portable_Document_Format#Implementations

70.24.251.208 (talk) 09:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agree --Oneiros (talk) 22:36, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

patents?

I understand that there are limitations regarding what kind of editing 3rd party vendors can provide with respect to .pdf documents, because of patents held by ADOBE. Can someone list those patents and when they expire? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skysong263 (talk • contribs) 19:27, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More information on the security encryption

This page: http://www.pdflib.com/knowledge-base/pdf-security/encryption/

Lists the different encryption algos, key lengths, and encodings for the various PDF spec levels. I do not believe the information is copyrighted (since it is simple factual knowledge) and would be a useful addition to the PDF wiki page.

PDF 1.1 - 1.3 (Acrobat 2-4)
RC4 40-bit
32 characters (Latin-1)

PDF 1.4 (Acrobat 5)
RC4 128-bit
32 characters (Latin-1)

PDF 1.5 (Acrobat 6)
same as PDF 1.4, but different application of encryption method
32 characters (Latin-1)

PDF 1.6 (Acrobat 7) and PDF 1.7 = ISO 32000-1 (Acrobat 8)
AES-128
32 characters (Latin-1)

PDF 1.7 Adobe Extension Level 3 (Acrobat 9)
AES-256 with weakness in password handling
127 UTF-8 bytes (Unicode)

PDF 1.7 Adobe Extension Level 8 (Acrobat X) PDF 2.0 = ISO32000-2
AES-256, but different password handling
127 UTF-8 bytes (Unicode) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.164.191.41 (talk) 07:22, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Intro does not mention the cross-plaform advantage of the PDF format

One of the key advantages of the PDF document format from the very get-go was that PDF docs would appear exactly the same on a Mac as on a PC (and later Linux). Since this was and is a key advantage of the PDF format, this really should be mentioned in the intro. That is why it's called "Portable Document Format". --24.130.122.217 (talk) 02:11, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What? This is literally covered in the first sentence... 80.156.44.33 (talk) 15:27, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clarity

I realize that this article has gotten good ratings on clarity, but I think the raters are mostly computer-savvy people. In fact, to me, the first sentence is too opaque. To see a better opener, go to the simple-English article.Kdammers (talk) 03:54, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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