Comments on: is there a pdf way?

By: how to tie trench coat belt

how to tie trench coat belt — Fri, 10 May 2013 07:40:58 +0000

10) Pin one end of the tie strap under the flap
inside the bag and then repeat on the other side. The only trick is
to make the listings as relevant as possible. The necktie, as we know it today,
was born during the Industrial Revolution-when huge revolutions and growths were made in the
manufacturing industry, especially in the textile and garment segment.

By: Matt MacKenzie

Matt MacKenzie — Tue, 17 May 2005 11:27:04 +0000

Adobe offers a product called "Adobe LiveCycle Policy Server" which allows document owners to revoke/replace a version of a document after it has been distributed. Worth a look...

http://www.adobe.com/products/server/policy/main.html

By: John Zoltai

John Zoltai — Mon, 16 May 2005 02:15:32 +0000

Coptech's SmartPDF was specifically designed to handle this problem, but a cruise across the web shows it's not compatible with Acro 6 and above, and there appear to be no updates available. Perhaps this has something to do with Adobe's release of Version Cue as a version management system for workgroups. Besides that, it was a hosted service with significant fees.

Either way, it still leaves the problem hanging out there, and it's not all that hard to fix, provided you're willing to stay within the Acro Reader model. The problem is, you need a place to act as the host.

The model: Set a document ID, current version number, and download url on the host. A javascript in the document goes to the host and queries based on the document id, which is stored in the document metadata. If the version number is different, the user is warned and provided with the download url.

This is a tiny amount of data, so any host would be able to handle gazillions of requests. The trick: Don't store the documents on the host, but provide a link to wherever the documents actually reside. This makes for a very scalable model and eliminates the concerns an author would have about being able to control access to the document. Each author would post their documents to servers under their control. The only additional requirement would be to educate the author on creating the appropriate metadata and JavaScript in their document.

So, the first thing that's needed, especially for academics, is someone to sponsor and build a host. Sounds like a nice little open source project for a graduate CS department. I'd be willing to do the documentation (req'ts, design, test, etc.) gratis if someone is willing to take on the coding and hosting part.

-Z-

By: lessig

lessig — Sun, 15 May 2005 13:43:48 +0000

Thanks for the help. The question was raised by some good souls who are encouraging people to release drafts of their academic articles on the web. The one concern many academics have is that the earlier (and hence bad) version remains the version posted everywhere, and referenced everywhere. The increasing standard for publishing such papers is PDF, and it is odd to me that Acrobat is keen to do a bunch of much more complicated control techniques, but not this simple (and it would seem, obvious) function. I too am not anti-Adobe -- their business model has been neutrality, and it has facilitated multi-platform growth. And I'm encouraged by 3bm's kind words about e2e.

By: Frank Bennett

Frank Bennett — Wed, 11 May 2005 17:21:01 +0000

Linking back to an "official" archive is surely the way to do it. Versioning is not necessarily linear -- there may be branches, or the document may be broken up, with chunks finding their way into other projects. A CMS is the obvious environment to set this up (see, e.g., CMFEditions for Plone ). The link would take you back to the doc's location in the CMS, and in that context it could know about its own currency. The doc in its original form will probably be some form of XML, rather than (shudder) PDF.

By: three blind mice

three blind mice — Wed, 11 May 2005 10:30:19 +0000

While I don't hate Adobe like I do MS, I don't like entrusting what has essentially become a web standard to a corporation with no direct interest in openess.

very charitable chris grande. the issue here is not "openess" but accuracy and the professor's question is a good one.

the desire for "openess" - and the opposition to any reasonable content control - has created a web which is largely a source of useless, unreliable, misleading, and inaccurate information - but lots of pornography.

that is the reality of the "commons."

why do you believe that an organization like the W3C will be ANY BETTER than a private for-profit corporation towards improving this dreadful status quo? at least a corporation has a bottom line to encourage them to be accurate.

the good intentions of non-government organizations like the WCCCP are subject to the corrosive influence of politics and the personal agendas of its directors.

we will take greedy profit-motivated companies over political groups any day. at least we will still have the democratic choice of how to spend our money.

by denying us the opportunity to have a web where end-to-end control and commercial interests can co-exist, all you are doing is imposing a (completely discredited) leftist political agenda on us.

By: Seisei Yamaguchi

Seisei Yamaguchi — Tue, 10 May 2005 15:19:30 +0000

Ex. : Firefox , Plugin update checker .

ps.
Mac OS X , PDF native rendering .

By: Serge Wroclawski

Serge Wroclawski — Mon, 09 May 2005 11:46:20 +0000

I agree with most of the others, but let me spin it a little.

First, you may want to put something on the document (maybe in the summary) saying "Get the most recent version of this here" and put some URL there. PDFs do support hyperlinks (though you should spell it out anyway).

Then always have the current version there.

Regarding "version numbers" in documents, I suggest a simple date will do, unless you're making major revisions.

But there's no way to enforce that everyone get the newest copy of a document just as there's no way to enforce that with paper.

By: orcmid

orcmid — Sun, 08 May 2005 20:44:54 +0000

Yes, the same solution works in any document format and viewer where a hyperlink is clickable. Even in documents that aren't clickable, the ability to copy and paste the URL into an address bar will get you the same process (in the non-Javascript case) and advice about a later version. I say do that much. That sets a baseline case. Sexier stuff can come later. (And this level has almost nothing to do with favoring a proprietary or undocumented format.)

By: Lemi4

Lemi4 — Sun, 08 May 2005 11:41:48 +0000

...showing that we do need something like PDF.

Perhaps something like DocBook?