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by romwell 972 days ago
>I actually don't agree with this. I think _not_ having "essential dynamism" where it's not needed is actually a feature, not a bug.

Yeah.

To author's surprise, Adobe's PDF spec supports JavaScript execution[1]. And interactive 3D graphics [2][3]. Not to mention, audio and video [4].

And "Liquid Mode" for responsive-layout PDF documents [5].

Of course, these "features" were considered bugs by the ISO PDF/A spec (archival, i.e. future-proof), so they were all stripped out [6].

The point being: sometimes a document should be a document.

As for science papers: LaTeX is written by humans, for humans. Custom latex commands and packages allow one to write a plaintext document that is as easily read as the paper it generates.

Which is great for accessibility, among other things.

[1] https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/applying-actions-scrip...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKfyFt3zT5A

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW5-1LVtd9U

[4] https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/rich-media.html

[5] https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/hub/what-is-adobe-liquid-mode....

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A

1 comments

The static issue also permeates to webpages and other formats though. Although this is now just yet another competing method for documentation or creation, the restrictions caused by using TeX or LaTeX over more dynamic approaches are not insignificant.