Adobe may already own the market for electronic documents thanks to PDF, but the company knows that Microsoft has a habit of showing up late to the party and stealing the crown. In turn, Adobe is beta testing a new project it calls ‘Mars’, which is an answer to Microsoft’s new XPS format.
Maybe If adobe would stop trying to sue them for including print to pdf in the os by default, they would not need to creat a new system..
I think that Microsoft V Adobe on a format war is a lost battle for Microsoft. Or, at least, I hope it is. I’m guessing Adobe believes the same thing.
It’s a lost battle for consumers, first.
Excuse me, call be ignorant, but why should I care or anyone else for that matter care about the welfare of Adobe – lets remember kiddies, this is the company that is screwing the Linux community over by first of all cancelling a native version of Framemaker for Linux, and poorly maintaining their PDF products that run on Linux.
Lets add to the fact that they sue anything and anyone within a 100km radius of their headquarters, and their veiled anti-linux programme, which I’m not surprised, the damn place is chocked to the ceiling with ex-Sun managers (probably the dead weight, SPARC at all costs bunch).
So I ask again, why should I or any of the Linux/Opensource/Openstandards community give two hoots about Adobe given its past, current and future arrogance?
So I ask again, why should I or any of the Linux/Opensource/Openstandards community give two hoots about Adobe given its past, current and future arrogance?
I wouldn’t quite have put it that way, but I do have to admit that watching Adobe and Microsoft argue over document “standards” leaves me with much the same helpless feeling I get watching politicians argue over how best to spend my tax money.
It’s a crapshoot as to who will ultimately screw me the least…
Its the old story, you’re going to get screwed, they argue over who is going to have sloppy seconds, when in reality, they never ask you what you want – and it turns out all you want is a hug.
Same situation here; I can’t stand Adobe because of their anti-linux/anti-unix agenda by the lack of porting their software to these said platforms.
On Microsoft side, XPS is a great format, but at the same time, I don’t trust Microsoft, once in a dominant position, to maintain and update their XPS specifications so that if they, for example, release Office/Windows with XPS 1.7, that they’ll update their specifications with ECMA/ISO and allow royalty free implementations on non-Windows platforms.
Its a bit more complicated no? I thought the problem for Adobe was having it included at no additional charge. They wanted a charge levied, so that their own solution would be competitive. Maybe someone better informed would correct if this is wrong.
But if this is true, it is a bit muddier than it first looked, and it rather casts doubt on the opennness of pdf. What the opennness of Mars will be is another question, but perhaps we should be wary?
What makes it even muddier is that Apple is allowed to do it at no cost, and they have it built into OSX. Adobe got mad at Microsoft for including it in Office 2007, and as n4cer said, is now a separate download.
One thing that is NOT muddy… PDF is NOT an open format, despite what everyone believes.
One thing that is NOT muddy… PDF is NOT an open format
And just what is that based on?
And just what is that based on?
On the fact that Adobe won’t let Microsoft utilize it.
On the fact that Adobe won’t let Microsoft utilize it.
In reality, Microsoft could have just went right ahead and implemented PDF support whatever Microsoft came up with. However, Adobe kicked up a fuss and Microsoft felt that the fuss wasn’t worth it. It just gave them an opportunity to get their own format up and running sooner.
Adobe has nothing against it. All we have are some rumours spread my MS, and vague non-committing statements from Adobe.
The fact that PDF has neither been submitted to ISO or ECMA for standardisation; OpenXML has, and XPS is in the pipeline right now.
Apple paid Adobe for the use of the PDF engine. Believe you me, Adobe just don’t give away that much for free (image composter etc.).
Jb
NextStep/OpenStep GUI was based on Adobe PostScript.
MacOS X (successor of OpenStep in technically point of view) has been altered to use Adobe PDF to render the GUI, now known as “Aqua”.
Both, NextStep and now Apple have licensed the technology from Adobe. So it’s not a problem for at all to allow Apple to ship their own PDF view app with some simple features.
OTOH, I’ve heard that Apple switched from PostScript to PDF to avoid paying Adobe anything.
PDF _is_ an open format, despite what MS-zealots wants everybody to believe.
PDF is NOT an open format, despite what everyone believes.
This is not 100% true:
Proper subsets of PDF have been, or are being, standardized under ISO for several constituencies. Further details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF.
Proper subsets of PDF have been, or are being, standardized under ISO for several constituencies.
Thats PDF version 1.4
Adobe is already at 1.7. Anyone using Adobe Acrobat to create files will be creating them in the 1.7 format.
Well, that is unless you use any of the default distilling options Adobe Acrobat ship with (and which are perfect for 95% of its users), in which case it will be either 1.4 or 1.3.
This is true as of Acrobat v8.
Duh!
Thats PDF version 1.4
Adobe is already at 1.7. Anyone using Adobe Acrobat to create files will be creating them in the 1.7 format.
But who should be accused of that?
1.) Adobe
a) because they commit their standards to late after they are created
b) because they have a too short release circle
or
2.) the ISO, because their accreditation process takes to long.
Don’t know…?
Just a correction: MS never wanted to include PDF printing in Windows by default. They did want to include that functionality in Office 2007 by default, but Adobe wanted them to charge extra for that functionality or not include it at all. MS instead chose to make it available as a free download for Office 2007 users.
Yes and that was a good way for them to test the waters to see how it went.
Do you mean test the waters for Windows? They are two seperate teams. Office added PDF because it was one of the top features requested by customers. Adding PDF printing to Windows wouldn’t make sense because there are already a number of free printer drivers available for PDF, you’d only get basic output from a printer driver because you wouldn’t have access to the same document information that a native application implementation would have, and XPS is the native format for Windows’ presentation layer and printing subsystem. Why bother putting PDF in Windows when everything speaks XPS natively and XPS is being integrated into devices?
Maybe If adobe would stop trying to sue them for including print to pdf in the os by default, they would not need to creat a new system..
The reason why Microsoft wanted to provide direct support for PDF was so they could use the monopolies of Windows and Office to produce the lion’s share of PDFs, with Microsoft’s own PDF generator, and then extend the PDF format itself into a new XPS format and leave PDF high and dry.
Microsoft were going to create a new format anyway. They were not interested in supporting PDF.
The reason why Microsoft wanted to provide direct support for PDF was so they could use the monopolies of Windows and Office to produce the lion’s share of PDFs, with Microsoft’s own PDF generator, and then extend the PDF format itself into a new XPS format and leave PDF high and dry.
No, there are ample precedents which illustrate that MS would never have been able to get away with this. MS tried to add extensions (and refused to support some alternative capabilities) to Java and Sun won $500M and an injunction against MS. Adobe would have done with same with PDF, if MS had tried to create a new and incompatible version.
No, there are ample precedents which illustrate that MS would never have been able to get away with this.
What precedents are these?
MS tried to add extensions (and refused to support some alternative capabilities) to Java and Sun won $500M and an injunction against MS.
Microsoft did add extensions to Java, and they were quite widely used. In the end though, the further damage to Java had been done (Microsoft might argue it was $500 million well spent) and Microsoft then went off and created J# to convert Java code to .Net.
Adobe would have done with same with PDF, if MS had tried to create a new and incompatible version.
Totally wrong. There is absolutely nothing in the PDF specification or anywhere that stops anyone from adding to the PDF format in any way. The only caveat is that you can’t call it a PDF, which would hardly bother Microsoft.
Totally wrong. There is absolutely nothing in the PDF specification or anywhere that stops anyone from adding to the PDF format in any way. The only caveat is that you can’t call it a PDF, which would hardly bother Microsoft.
Naming (i.e., use of the Java trademarks) was one of the issues in Sun v. MS. Based on the raw deal they got in that case, I think it would bother MS.
Naming (i.e., use of the Java trademarks) was one of the issues in Sun v. MS. Based on the raw deal they got in that case, I think it would bother MS.
Damn. Microsoft can’t use the Java name. I bet that really bothered them considering the damage was already done to Java by then (and they weren’t using the Java name – it was called Visual J++). I’d hardly call it a raw deal, but I suppose Microsoft and their supporters would want to paint it as such ;-).
Besides, this has no bearing on Microsoft creating an incompatible PDF version. When they create compatible PDFs they can call it a PDF. When they don’t they can’t, and by then Microsoft will be in the position that it wants.
Edited 2006-12-14 22:53
Damn. Microsoft can’t use the Java name. I bet that really bothered them considering the damage was already done to Java by then (and they weren’t using the Java name – it was called Visual J++). I’d hardly call it a raw deal, but I suppose Microsoft and their supporters would want to paint it as such ;-).
The used the Java compatible logo and I’m sure there were references to Java in the product. Yes, they got a raw deal because their runtime was as compatible as many others at the time and outperformed most of them too. Sun basically said developers were too stupid to know when they were using non-portable code, which was total BS. And not long after that you had several Java implementations spring up that allowed you to do non-portable development.
Besides, this has no bearing on Microsoft creating an incompatible PDF version. When they create compatible PDFs they can call it a PDF. When they don’t they can’t, and by then Microsoft will be in the position that it wants.
This was Sun’s whole argument in that regard — that they tricked developers into creating something that wasn’t Java so Sun should get money because they’re using Sun’s logos/trademarks to claim it’s Java.
I don’t see how they got a raw deal. Frankly, I think they got off way to easy. $500 million is chump change to MS. I’d have like to seen MS be forced to include Sun’s Java with Windows for at least as long as they shipped their own corrupted version.
“I don’t see how they got a raw deal. Frankly, I think they got off way to easy. $500 million is chump change to MS. I’d have like to seen MS be forced to include Sun’s Java with Windows for at least as long as they shipped their own corrupted version.”
Unfortunately Sun wanted NO jave shipped with Microsoft. Not the MS virtual machine, nor the Sun version.
Really? That seems kind of stupid of them. You’d think they’d want Java spread as far and wide as possible and the best way to do that at this time is to get it bundled with Windows.
What precedents are these?
See Sun v. Microsoft, for one.
Microsoft did add extensions to Java, and they were quite widely used. In the end though, the further damage to Java had been done (Microsoft might argue it was $500 million well spent) and Microsoft then went off and created J# to convert Java code to .Net.
In the end, it hurt Microsort more than it helped because it was ordered to pay $500M and stop distributing code which harmed Sun’s product. The same would happen, if Microsoft were to do the same with Adobe and PDF. Think that this lesson was lost on Microsoft? If so, you’re wrong. Microsoft pulled PDF support from Office merely on the threat of Adobe suing them.
Totally wrong. There is absolutely nothing in the PDF specification or anywhere that stops anyone from adding to the PDF format in any way. The only caveat is that you can’t call it a PDF, which would hardly bother Microsoft.
You forgot one important thing: Under your scenario, Microsoft would no longer be able to call them PDF files. They would have to call them something different in order to avoid stomping on Adobe’s reader. Since nobody but Microsoft would know about and/or write this new format, that wouldn’t yield any benefit over Microsoft adopting its own format (ie. XPS). Thus, your scenario makes zero sense.
See Sun v. Microsoft, for one.
Meaningless. See above.
In the end, it hurt Microsort more than it helped because it was ordered to pay $500M
This is chicken feed to Microsoft, and is something they will quite happily pay at any time to either set back or nullify anything that harms the monopolies they have with Windows and Office, or for a market or competitor they would just like to go away. See the Novell deal.
The same would happen, if Microsoft were to do the same with Adobe and PDF.
Adobe would threaten and probably file a few patents, but strictly speaking, there’s no way they can stop Microsoft implementing the PDF format. It’s an ISO standard.
Microsoft probably weighed it up and felt that it was more important at the moment to keep a major Windows ISV happy, and to keep quiet on the anti-trust front. They can just play the long game with regards to usurping PDF, rather than brute-forcing it with direct support.
You forgot one important thing: Under your scenario, Microsoft would no longer be able to call them PDF files.
I find it amusing that you seem to be supporting Microsoft, and yet you have no clue whatsoever about what I’m describing, or Microsoft’s past tactics regarding these things – or you pretend not to ;-).
Microsoft would initially create a perfectly compatible PDF reader and writer, starting with Office and then moving to their new presentation software. They would be able to call the documents these things produce PDFs.
When Microsoft feels that enough of the PDFs in the world are being produced by Microsoft Office and the new software they’ve come out with, then they would simply extend PDFs in an incompatible way, thus meaning that they would no longer be producing PDFs, or they would simply replace PDFs in a writing sense with their own format in later versions of the software.
This wouldn’t bother Microsoft of course, because a lot of the PDFs being produced in their eyes would be produced by their software, so there would be no problem.
Voila. Lock-in via the installed base of Windows and Office.
Edited 2006-12-14 23:16
MS didn’t try to add extensions. They added extensions. It went far beyond “trying”.
Clearly you don’t have a single clue about the Java issue or how the whole Java market works – all J2EE companies add ‘extensions’ to their product, which is incompatible with other vendors.
The issue regarding Microsoft wasn’t anything to do with extensions, but the fact that Microsoft violated the trademark agreement with Sun by continuing to ship a product that they labelled ‘100% Pure Java” when infact, the product failed to pass the Java conformance tests.
Microsoft *DIDN’T* extend it, hell, they didn’t even implement the required parts properly! they created an incompatible version by pullin gout Java standarf features and replacing them with “Windows Only” technologies.
The issue wasn’t over the fact that they *offered* those technologies; under the Java licence, they as a vendor is quite entitled to offer those extensions, just as IBM offers SWT side by side with Swing – Microsoft could have provided the end user with a completely 100% compatible version AND offered as well ‘Windows only’ features.
Microsoft had already created the new format, XPS, which resulted from their rewrite of Windows’ presentation architecture. There’s no evidence they had any intention to extend PDF. They didn’t even have a PDF viewer, so how are they going to produce documents no one can consume?
There’s no evidence they had any intention to extend PDF.
Yeah, but if you put on your tinfoil hat and tilt your head slightly east, the resulting radio traffic that you receive via your dental fillings indicates that MS is guilty, guilty, guilty! (/sarcasm)
There’s no evidence they had any intention to extend PDF.
Open up your history book once in a while.
Open up your history book once in a while.
Take off your blinders.
Take off your blinders.
If you think I’m wearing blinders then I’m afraid you’ll have to do better.
Hmmmmm. Let me see.
Did I imagine that Microsoft deliberately made sure that Windows wouldn’t run on DR-DOS?
Why no, I didn’t.
Did I imagine that Microsoft created a ton of incompatible and Windows specific extensions to Java, the sole purpose of which was to create Java code that couldn’t be moved off Windows?
Why no, I didn’t.
Did I imagine that Microsoft extended Kerberos, DNS and LDAP in incompatible ways with what the rest of the world was doing?
Why no, I didn’t.
All this, and you think Microsoft had no intention of extending PDF in the same manner as every other format or protocol they’ve ever embraced? There’s a twenty plus year history of this, and if you’re not aware of it, then I really don’t know what you’re doing here because you don’t know much about computing.
Did I imagine that Microsoft deliberately made sure that Windows wouldn’t run on DR-DOS?
Yes. Cancelling an error message in a beta version of Windows 3.1 wasn’t that onerous.
“In one example, they inserted code into the beta version of Windows 3.1 to return a non-fatal error message if it detected a non-Microsoft DOS. With the detection code disabled (or if the user canceled the error message), Windows ran perfectly under DR-DOS. [1] This code was removed from final release of Windows 3.1 and all subsequent versions, however.”
— Wikipedia
Did I imagine that Microsoft deliberately made sure that Windows wouldn’t run on DR-DOS?
Beta OS — No release version did that, and the code did not specifically detect DR-DOS. It detected MS-DOS and displayed a general warning if it wasn’t found because MS had received bug reports about compatibility issues with some non-MS versions of DOS, and did not want to support them.
Did I imagine that Microsoft created a ton of incompatible and Windows specific extensions to Java, the sole purpose of which was to create Java code that couldn’t be moved off Windows?
Microsoft’s Java implementation was compatible with other implementations of Java. It included Microsoft namespaces with additional functionality that allowed you to code against native Windows services. If you were dumb enough to do this and not know that portion of your code wasn’t portable, you shouldn’t call yourself a developer. It was value-added functionality that many people who had no need for cross-platform compatibility used to get their jobs done faster. If portability was your main concern, you could just as easily use only the standard namespaces.
Did I imagine that Microsoft extended Kerberos, DNS and LDAP in incompatible ways with what the rest of the world was doing?
Extended according to the standard. All three protocols are interoperable with other platforms and used in mixed environments.
All this, and you think Microsoft had no intention of extending PDF in the same manner as every other format or protocol they’ve ever embraced? There’s a twenty plus year history of this, and if you’re not aware of it, then I really don’t know what you’re doing here because you don’t know much about computing.
Yes. You have not produced a single bit of evidence that they intended to extend PDF. They have used PDF in other products like SharePoint without extending it. Adobe is trying to protect their market plain and simple, and have placed their market position ahead of consumer benefit. I’ve lived the 20+ year history of it which is why I challenge your biased rewriting of it.
This is complete nonsense because in this format war the users have to install thousands of apps to support these formats. I mean for opening pdf, install bulky Acrobat Reader. For Microsoft’s XPS (of course there will be built-in support in Vista for viewing), some new app will come. Similarly now Adobe’s new project “Mars” will introduce some new stupid format.
How many formats r they going to introduce?
What I think is that all companies must use a single standard for viewing documents similar to odf format for word processing.
Adobe Reader 8 is a massive step forward, at least on windows. It’s quicker in loading the app, quicker to render the document, has a much simpler interface, and just seems slimmer all around.
It even runs in Firefox better than it ever did.
I can’t speak of Standard or Pro (waiting until v3 of CS before upgrading my CS apps) but it seems like Adobe is actually innovating their product. Good on them for it.
Competition is a fantastic thing, let it happen!
“Competition is a fantastic thing, let it happen!”
Of course competition is nice thing but it doesn’t mean that they all create hundreds of formats out there in the market. What I think they must spend there efforts on common format instead on different projects. This just like what most OOP programmers say, “Reinventing the wheel…”
What I think is that all companies must use a single standard for viewing documents similar to odf format for word processing.
Actually, I prefer to let the market decide. Whichever one comes out on top, that’s what I’ll use.
For the market to decide, we would need to have a level playing field. Unfortunately, we don’t have that right now, not by any measure (because of MS lock-in).
XPS is set to be submitted to ECMA (and probably ISO), the packaging conventions upon which it is built are already standardized, and the spec is freely available currently. If you’re going to assert lock-in, at least substantiate the claim. In the simplest case, moving from one format to the other is as easy as printing to the other format, and more Microsoft (and other vendor’s) products currently support PDF than XPS.
Edited 2006-12-14 22:39
My bad, I misread the preceding comment since it quoted a response in which ODF was mentioned. I thought tomcat claimed the market should decide for Office file format.
Of course, there is no MS lock-in for portable document formats, considering that MS doesn’t dominate this market.
BTW, thanks for not automatically insulting me like he did, however. You’re the proof we can disagree while remaining civil.
Edited 2006-12-14 22:53
Remaining civil is overrated.
Remaining civil is overrated.
Such a statement can only be construed as an admission of one’s own inadequacies.
There are better ways to deal with your sociopathy than trolling internet forums, you know…
therein lies the route to barbarianism and anarchy.
Ever noticed the similarity between the word civil and the word civilisation?
🙂
Get a life. Nobody is locked into PDF, XPS, or any other format. That’s purely your F/OSS fantasy…
Again with the insults, eh, tomcat?
I misread your preceding post and thought you were saying that the market should decided for Office formats (the post you quoted mentioned ODF).
You could have simply corrected me, but instead you went into attack mode. How typical.
misread your preceding post and thought you were saying that the market should decided for Office formats (the post you quoted mentioned ODF).
The market can and will decide. Bringing up “lock-in” was a worthless canard because you and I both know that that’s bull****.
Do you have problems with reading simple english? I already admitted that I had misread your post and thought you were talking about Office formats (where I know that lock-in exists, since I have experienced it first-hand).
See my response to n4cer. I already admitted my mistake about PDF/XPS.
No need to admit your mistake. I already know that you’re seriously flawed.
Wow, what an amazing display of wit, I am dazzled.
Keep insulting people, tomcat. That will really build up your credibility.
Except that XPS is not GPL compatible. So no GPL’d project can bundle an XPS reader/writer/editor, so that’s Linux and OOo out of the window.
No. That’s not lockin. How could it be?
Except that XPS is not GPL compatible. So no GPL’d project can bundle an XPS reader/writer/editor, so that’s Linux and OOo out of the window.
No. That’s not lockin. How could it be?
Some might say the GPL is lock-in. In any case:
Microsoft freely licenses XPS technology to encourage its use as general-purpose documents. Microsoft grants a royalty-free copyright license to copy, display, and distribute the XML Paper Specification. Microsoft also grants a royalty-free patent license to read, write and render XPS Documents. Execution of the licenses is straightforward and does not require the company to sign and return the license agreement. There is a requirement that any XPS implementation that is distributed, licensed or sold contain a notice in the source code of the implementation indicating that Microsoft may have intellectual property associated with the implementation and to provide a link to where the license may be obtained from Microsoft. The patent license also includes a covenant not to sue provision for companies engaged in certain businesses; the provision contents and reasoning are explained below.
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/xpslicense.mspx
So you agree that the XPS licence is incompatible with the majority of OSI Approved Licenses?
So you agree that the XPS licence is incompatible with the majority of OSI Approved Licenses?
No, I don’t agree. If XPS is incompatible then so is PDF since both require similar notices.
No, it’s not to do with the notice requirement.
XPS is not sublicensable (sp?) AND the patent license can be withdrawn* by Microsoft at any time.
PDF (AFAICS) has no such restriction.
There’s no need for a sublicense. The license is made directly with each user of XPS, which is why you include the notice linking users of your implementation with the XPS license.
The only provision for license withdrawl is if you either sue Microsoft over IP related to XPS or if you make some non-comformant implementation and call it XPS. Both of these apply to PDF and a lot of other format standards.
The GPL requires that there can be no possibility of any reciever of the licences product not being able (by law) to run OR distribute the program.
Therefore the possibility that Microsoft might withdraw the availability of the (perpetual only once granted) XPS license in the future breaks the requirements of the GPL.
Therefore the possibility that Microsoft might withdraw the availability of the (perpetual only once granted) XPS license in the future breaks the requirements of the GPL.
What do you mean, “perpetual only once granted”? The license is automatically granted.
It’s only automatically granted as long as Microsoft continue to automatically grant it.
Yeah, like how the GPL is only granted as long as the GNU continues to automatically grant it.
No. Clause 6:
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted herein.
You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
this License.
This is a self-maintaining license. The XPS license is not, kinda like the f’ugly Windows Activation.
And if you (or the developer) violates the terms of the license, it may be revoked, just as with XPS. You can’t grant to others what you have no claim to.
Yes, let’s bring Windows Activation into the discussion as a distraction and because you apparently believe MS has no right to protect their property and prevent others from stealing it.
Edited 2006-12-15 16:52
It was a humourous point, not a distraction so let’s put it behind us.
And if you (or the developer) violates the terms of the license, it may be revoked,
Are you stupid, or just pretending to be to avoid the issue?
Revocation on violation is not the issue. The issue is that once a piece of software is released under the GPL, it has to be free to be distributed infinitely. If Microsoft removes the availability of new XPS licenses, then any XPS compatible software stops being legally distributable.
The license is perpetual, so any existing implementation could remain available whether or not they pulled the license.
Realisticly, this is a non-issue. Given that this isn’t a special license for GPL developers, and the same license is used for end-users, partners, and competitors, do you really think MS is going to suddenly pull all licensing?
If you do, then wait for ECMA/ISO approval and/or availability under the OSP. Although if you do believe this, it’s convenient that this concern is ignored for other technologies.
Actually, I prefer to let the market decide.
Considering that we don’t actually have a market in every sense of the word, I’m curious as to where you get that idea from.
Of course there’s a market in every sense of the word. It may not be a market to your liking, but it exists, nonetheless.
It may not be a market to your liking, but it exists, nonetheless.
Where? I don’t see a market for file formats anywhere, nor do I see there being a healthy base for one where a monopoly cannot simply force one on people at any time it likes.
Either you believe there is market, which is strange considering the reality of today, or like Microsoft, you want to pretend that there is one for reasons that are best known to you ;-). Microsoft always laughably talks about market choice in every piece of literature it comes out with.
There is an open standard already. It is called Postscript. Hardly anybody uses it though.
As far as I know, PDF is a derivative of EPS which is a development of PS.
This is complete nonsense because in this format war the users have to install thousands of apps to support these formats. I mean for opening pdf, install bulky Acrobat Reader. For Microsoft’s XPS (of course there will be built-in support in Vista for viewing), some new app will come. Similarly now Adobe’s new project “Mars” will introduce some new stupid format.
I just use Evince, a document viewer. It opens all kinds of different formats, including pdf, postscript, dvi, etc. I’m sure it will support XPS and Mars in the future.
Yeah I know because I also use evince in Linux.
May be evince will give support for XPS and Mars but its quality of displaying the documents is very poor.
May be evince will give support for XPS and Mars but its quality of displaying the documents is very poor.
In what way? I haven’t had a problem with evince yet. I use it regularly to view pdf, dvi, and postscript. What problems are you experiencing?
Yeah it opens everything that u wrote but compare the quality with Acrobat Reader. In evince, for some pdf documents the font is not clear. Of course acrobat reader takes a lot of memory but its performance is cool once it’s loaded. Evince is small in size but its performance sucks.
In evince, for some pdf documents the font is not clear.
I guess I’m lucky then because I’ve never had that problem with evince.
Evince is small in size but its performance sucks.
I’m using a low end machine so evince can take a while to render large documents but Adobe’s reader is even slower for me.
foxit reader pretty much saved PDF for me. No need for acrofat reader!
It was pretty daft of Microsoft to try introducing their own PDF-like standard now that there are so many PDF-format documents out there – but what good will it do Adobe to introduce a third?!
It was pretty daft of Microsoft to try introducing their own PDF-like standard now that there are so many PDF-format documents out there – but what good will it do Adobe to introduce a third?!
Not really. The fault lies with Adobe.
Adobe placed severe constraints on what MS can and can’t do with PDF, threatening to sue when it planned to use it, etc. How could anyone (let alone Microsoft) work within such ridiculous constraints? Answer: They can’t. Hence, MS was merely reacting when it introduced its own format. Adobe only has Adobe to blame for having to create yet another format to counter Microsoft’s actions.
Yet Another Document Format. I can’t find the excat words to explain my happiness. </sarcasm>
On the other hand, it brings support to newer technologies, and that’s a Good Thing, but I can’t help to think that enhancing PDF would be a better idea.
Any idea if they are going to make this a PDF replacement or the two formats are going to have seperate reader/writer apps?
Edit: Removed worthless rant. Evolution and competition are facts.
Edited 2006-12-14 19:38
I’ve browsed the XML source of OpenDocument files, Office 2007 files, XPS files, and now Mars files. They are all essentially the same thing – XML and XSL in a ZIP container. Even the structure in the ZIP files themselves are pretty similar. The difference is that Mars docs open in a fraction of the time of any of the other three. It’s not even comparable (on Windows). Second fastest (at present time) is DOCX. OpenDocs are the slowest (based on launch of OO.o).
From what I see, I like Mars, and I like Adobe Reader 8. I can launch AR8 and open a Mars file (from zero) in less than 2 seconds).
For the record, I still use FoxIt on Windows and Preview at home, but I *like* Acrobat Reader 8. It’s much faster than the last two incarnations.
From what I see, I like Mars, and I like Adobe Reader 8. I can launch AR8 and open a Mars file (from zero) in less than 2 seconds).
From what I see, I like Mars, and I like Adobe Reader 8. I can launch AR8 and open a Mars file (from zero) in less than 2 seconds).
Apples and oranges. After you boot Adobe Reader for the first time, it stays loaded, consuming memory and waiting for you to open another document. This explains why it’s able to open subsequent documents so much “faster”. But this has contributed to it becoming a BLOATED MONSTROSITY. I would gladly tradeoff slower boot times for the 25-30MB that it regularly consumes.
After you boot Adobe Reader for the first time
Did you even actually read my comment? I can open it “from nothing.” I can launch and load in 2 seconds. Who said anything about subsequent loads? I’m talking about the first time!
Sounds like someone has a predisposition to disliking Adobe products.
Did you even actually read my comment? I can open it “from nothing.” I can launch and load in 2 seconds. Who said anything about subsequent loads? I’m talking about the first time!
Look, I’m not making any assumptions about your technical prowess. You could very well have run Adobe Reader previously, forgotten about it, and then run it again a couple days later — then, whoopie, it loads in two seconds. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve seen people overstate perf results.
Sounds like someone has a predisposition to disliking Adobe products.
I don’t like bloat. And Adobe Reader is a BLOATED PIG of a program. Ask around. I don’t think you’ll get too much disagreement. And, if you still don’t like the results, well … you’ll have to take it up with your employer…
AR8 is actually pretty good than AR7 et al. Being a long time Adobe hater due to their slow products, I was amazed at how polished it is and how fast it loads.
I will keep AR8, it is pretty rock solid and good.
Thanks for the reply. I hope that’s true. I’ll give it a try soon.
First, Adobe products are too expensive. Because they do not control an operating system. they need to give users a more than good reason to buy a specific product instead of a competing Microsoft product. I suggest Adobe Acrobat professional at $50 instead of $500 and make it available in all common operating system platforms
Secondly instead of creating a plethora of new document formats Adobe needs to work on adding spreadsheet and presentation (Excel and Powerpoint) support to Acrobat so I can create a spreadsheet as good as Excel ones and save them in the popular pdf format. These are the kind of battles that will win Adobe market share and new friends.
Adobe needs to work on adding spreadsheet and presentation (Excel and Powerpoint) support to Acrobat
Acrobat comes with distiller which allows you to export Excel and Powerpoint documents to PDF. These types of documents don’t really need the indexing that text based PDFs do, and for most, this functionality is plenty suitable.
Adam Scheinberg wrote:
Acrobat comes with distiller which allows you to export Excel and Powerpoint documents to PDF.
Can Adobe reader open Excel files? Can I use Adobe professional to create a brand new spreadsheet as good as an Excel spreadsheet and save this new spreadsheet as a PDF file? Can I go into a store and buy Adobe professional for about $50 and install it on any operating system of my choice? These are the questions that Adobe needs to answer before it hopes to compete with a behemoth like Microsoft.
Trolling isn’t the answer.
Adobe reader open Excel files
No. But then Adobe Reader only opens Adobe formats. You’re not complaining that AR doesn’t open Word Documents.
Can I use Adobe professional to create a brand new spreadsheet as good as an Excel spreadsheet and save this new spreadsheet as a PDF file
Nearly. You make the spreadsheet in Excel and then Distill it using the Distiller bundled with Adobe Professional. There’s no point in Adobe trying to re-invent the wheel by implementing a spreadsheet app when Excel is already polished.
All the comments I read here look like written by computer-oriented people. There is however extremely important field of pdf use: press, paper publications.
Can you name all those pdf-dialects here? Any new format should (!!) fail just because there is too much problems with all those colorspaces, printer-specific issues etc. Let typesetters do their work in peace, not worrying if printer is able to open their work at all!
Let them hope that what they’ll get printed is exactly what they wanted to be printed…
Edited 2006-12-14 22:58
Ever sent a raw image to a printer? You get all the same colorspace issues there as well, as well as DPI problems.
There have always had problems with getting layouts/prints right. The sheer number of printing methods/inks/media implies compatibility problems.
Luckily there are well-defined, non-technical solutions to these problems. e.g.: 1) Proofs. 2) Professional-Partnerships.
PDF (and PS) are widely used by printers. XPS will also have printers that use it natively, how do they compare in actual page-layout features?
PDF (and PS) are widely used by printers. XPS will also have printers that use it natively, how do they compare in actual page-layout features?
You can find more info on XPS here:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/default.mspx
While a PDF reference is available here:
http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/pdf/index_reference.html
The Royalty Adobe wanted for Display Postscript was, in 1997 $10/copy and going to Display PDF eliminated this tax and Apple agreed to be 1 revision behind Adobe’s PDF writing engine.