Pointless Document Format

The internet loves PDFs and I don't understand why. They serve one reasonable purpose, making sure that whatever you send to a printing service comes out looking the way it's supposed to look. For just about any other use case, the web is a better solution.

Ways in which PDFs are inferior to using the web:

• Not responsive. PDFs don’t adapt to screen size, forcing you to zoom and pan on small screen devices (which account for two thirds of all web traffic).
• No live updates. Once downloaded a PDF is frozen in time, updates require sending or finding a new file. Which leads me to:
• Version confusion. Multiple outdated versions often circulate, leading to misinformation and inconsistencies.
• Hard to navigate. The web has a whole lot of tricks for navigating content. The PDF offers... I don't know, anchor links?
• Isolated from context. A PDF offers no context. No related content. And no clear way to verify source or sender.
• Limited multimedia. Embedding videos, animations or charts or pretty much any type of interactivity is awkward, difficult or impossible.
• Extra work. You create the content, export it as a PDF, then figure out how to send it, usually as an attachment, and someone needs to download it, and hopefully be able to open it. On the web, you just publish and share a link. Done. All messaging services supports links, all devices today have a browser.
• Easily manipulated. PDFs look official and final, but unless digitally signed (most aren't) they can be altered without leaving clear evidence, making it risky to assume their contents are true or legally binding.
• Security risks. PDFs can carry malicious scripts, making them a risky file to open. The web is not risk free of course, but at least offers some options to verify legitimacy.

While writing this, I’ve identified two other possible advantages: offline availability and archiving. Offline? We’re rarely without an internet connection these days, and most of the content people put in PDFs doesn’t need offline access. Archiving? That’s more a question about where and how you store something, not what file format it’s in.

If your goal is to share information, use the web. It's pretty great ^[1].