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I will admit that I am new to the tech/dev field. It seems to become a trend that every time I have to work with PDFs a part of me dies.

Why is this format as ubiquitous as it seems to be?

Is it just non-tech people that prefer PDFs?

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This greatly depends on the PDF API you're using to create/read/manipulate them. Care to elaborate more what frustates you? Edit: or are you actually talking as user? – BalusC Apr 30 '10 at 21:09
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Why does a part of you die with PDFs? – rlb.usa Apr 30 '10 at 21:25
Having to edit and work them is less optimal than: txt, xls, xml, html. I admit it could be because I have more experience with these other formats. The first thing I do when I get a pdf is convert it into another type that is simpler to manipulate. – dan_vitch Apr 30 '10 at 22:02
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I'm guessing that you use Adobe Reader to view them. Try the built in preview on OSX and suddenly PDFs are great again! – Rich Bradshaw May 5 '10 at 14:41
As an aside, Microsoft actually came out with their own "PDF-like" format... XPS. Maybe they've cleaned it up some, but I know at least a year or so ago, an XPS was almost twice the size of a PDF of the same exact thing. So PDFs definitely seem to be size-optimized. – eidylon May 5 '10 at 14:55
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6 Answers

up vote 28 down vote accepted

One of the most important advantages of PDF format is you can embed fonts in PDF so that anyone with a PDF viewer can view it without having to have those fonts installed on his system. Other advantages:

  • PDF documents are portable. (Independent of hardware, software or operating system)
  • PDF documents are optimally sized. (Much smaller in size without losing any quality)
  • PDF documents are secure. (Security features that do not allow just anyone to edit them. This feature is especially liked by people publishing legal document and research papers on the Internet.)
  • PDF reading software is free.
  • PDF documents can be easily viewed in most web-browsers.
  • The emergence of various PDF converter softwares has further given a boost to the popularity of PDF documents.
  • PDF allows to embed color profiles to achieve high color fidelity on any output device. (Granted, correct handling of color settings is an art in itself and requires expert level knowhow.)
  • PDF documents provide for high quality printing. (Most professional printing is centered around (semi-) automatic PDF workflows.)
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Good summary, but I would actually list your 5th point ("easily viewed in most web-browsers") as a major annoyance. I hate clicking on a PDF link by accident and having the PDF open automatically inside the browser window instead of prompting me to download it. It's particularly annoying if I'm logged into a secure website and I'm not able to easily get back to the previous page by clicking the browser's back button. – rob Apr 30 '10 at 21:43
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Sometimes it's useful, sometimes not. I easily get control over it on Firefox by enabling and disabling Foxit Reader addon. – Mehper C. Palavuzlar Apr 30 '10 at 21:46
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Point #3 is flat incorrect. The pdf format is becoming a popular vector for malware. – Satanicpuppy Apr 30 '10 at 21:48
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@satanicpuppy: Point #3 is not a future prediction. It explains the situation till now. I believe pdf is more secure than other document formats. – Mehper C. Palavuzlar Apr 30 '10 at 21:52
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@satanicpuppy: I will; and to make you happy, I'm deleting that part. I hope you approve the remaining. – Mehper C. Palavuzlar Apr 30 '10 at 21:59
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up vote 13 down vote

PDF files have some big advantages:

  1. Everyone has Acrobat Reader (or Foxit, or a different PDF reader)
  2. Unlike HTML, PDF files have no rendering issues on different platforms and clients. (AFAIK)
  3. Any file format can be converted to PDF using a PDF printer.
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More: PDFs cannot be edited like MS Word documents. PDFs can also be distributed and filled out as forms; no other common document can do this. – rlb.usa Apr 30 '10 at 21:25
More: Other forms of programming/typesetting have toPDF conversion methods/utilitiespackages. For example, you can output a LaTeX and GSScript to PDF but I have never seen a converter for MS Word. – rlb.usa Apr 30 '10 at 21:32
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Regarding #2, PDFs do sometimes have rendering problems. For example, several pages from the user manual for one of my company's products do not render correctly in the default PDF viewers on CentOS 4.x/5.x and Ubuntu Linux. I've also sometimes had rendering issues when PDF was created with a brand-new version of Acrobat, and my PDF viewer (either a third-party or old version) didn't support the new features used in the creation of that document. I'd suggest changing #2 to emphasize that PDF preserves the original layout across platforms, rather than suggesting that it has no rendering issues. – rob Apr 30 '10 at 21:33
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You forgot to mention the hell that is the Encapsulated Postscript File...If you're doing professional printing (newsprint, magazines, etc) you're going to have to use one format or the other, and PDF is far friendlier. – Satanicpuppy Apr 30 '10 at 21:35
@rlb.usa: minor correction - PDF is not the only common format that can be used to create fillable forms; MS Word documents can be distributed and filled out as forms, too. – rob Apr 30 '10 at 21:36
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up vote 6 down vote

Pdf format is so popular because it's displayed the same everywhere. No matter of what fonts, are used, no matter what mathematical formulas, hardware, software...

The user sees the information as the writer intended to, which is a really important advantage.

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up vote 4 down vote

PDF is an excellent way to transmit read-only material that is designed to be printed and must adhere to a specific layout and rendering that does not permit variation.

There is really no other widely supported open, standardized format that fulfills these goals. HTML renders differently on every browser. MS Word documents are a proprietary format. Almost anything else is not supported on a huge proportion of potential recipients' systems.

Certainly PDF can be abused in any number of ways, but it's not inherently bad.

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+1 agreed, although the adherence to a specific layout and rendering is not as uniform in practice as it should be. – David Zaslavsky May 1 '10 at 2:42
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up vote 2 down vote

It's widely used because it has been - for a very long time - been the only format that allowed high-fidelity rendering of text documents on a large variety of platforms.

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up vote 2 down vote

currently pdfs are also very popular with botnet creators!

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