[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.