Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by fierarul 2098 days ago
Can Apple kill PDF too, please?

I'm especially enraged at the PDF "forms" XFA or whatever that no software on this planet can open except Adobe Reader. And Adobe Reader even on macOS doesn't allow Print to PDF or something else to get a PDF in a "sane" format.

I have to use a fake printer to trick Adobe Reader about this! Incredible!
1 comments
a2tech 2098 days ago
Fun loophole that usually works--so Adobe Acrobat on the Mac doesn't let you use the default Print to PDF functionality, BUT if instead of selecting PDF you print to Postscript it will work.
link
Dalrymple 2098 days ago
Speaking of print-to-PDF, this is tremendously useful functionality, but fails on over half of the web pages out there. Is this due to some intentional action by the publisher, as a copy protection mechanism, or due to faults in the print-to-PDF driver? If due to faults in the driver, whose print-to-PDF driver is the best at implementing this functionality - I've tried several and they all seem to be sub-par.

Another PDF issue, does anyone except Adobe make a good PDF malware remover (from inside the PDF file). PDF malware seems to be rare, but could be a big problem if it ever catches on.

link
fierarul 2098 days ago
It does not work. Just like print to PDF, trying prostscript tells you:

> Saving a PDF file when printing is not supported. Instead, > choose File > Save.

Because Adobe went out of their way to prevent this to work.

link