[detourdog]

When Acrobat came out cross platform was not common. Being able to publish a document that could be opened on multiple platforms was a big advantage. I was using it to distribute technical specifications in the mid 90's. Different pages of these specifications came from, Filemaker, Excel, Word, Mini-Cad, Photoshop, Illustrator, and probably other applications as well. We would combine these into a single PDF file. This simplified version control. This also meant that bidders could not edit the specifications.

None of that could be accomplished with Word alone. I think you are underestimating the qualities of PDF for distribution of complex documents.

[ajross]

> This also meant that bidders could not edit the specifications.

But they can! That's the bug, PDF is a mutable file format owing to Adobe's muckery. And you made the same mistake that every government redactor and censor (up to and including the ?!@$! NSA per the linked article) has in the intervening decades.

The file format you thought you were using was a great fit for your problem, and better than MS Word. The software Adobe shipped was, in fact, something else.

[detourdog]

Our use wasn't that high stakes. I also can't remember all the details but were using 3rd party publishing tools beyond Acrobat. Acrobat was the reader that our specifications could be opened in. We had to use additional software and to add consistent headers and get accurate pager numbers.