PDF isn't a panacea

Office WatchLast updated: 17 July 2018

PDF isn’t a perfect format. But it beats the living daylights out of the DOC format for any files posted on the Internet.

In the course of my DOC File Dumpster Diving (I like the ring of that phrase!), I recommended using PDF for any files posted on the Internet. There have been many hisses and boos, because PDF isn’t a perfect format. But it beats the living daylights out of DOC.

Office Watch reader AM makes an awfully good point: “Just because it’s in PDF doesn’t mean no one can monkey with your doc. About a year ago I was working for a consulting company and they asked me to help with some marketing materials. (I was on the bench and knew how to use Photoshop and Illustrator.) They specifically needed my help in retrieving logos from past and current clients to print out. I found that by going into the PDF version of the annual reports from those clients, you can often find many logos that are otherwise not accessible. The trick is to open that page of the report in Illustrator. Then you can cut, copy, paste, move around, do whatever. You can then save as a PDF as well.

“So, if you have a one-page PDF coupon, just open it in Illustrator and make it a two-for-one deal!”

Heh heh heh.