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Re:Making a PDF that's larger than Germany by da_chicken on Thursday February 01, 2024 @08:51AM (#39215873)
I really appreciate what PDF can accomplish, but I also really dislike that it turns into a black box. There really ought to be something that can describe a document structure and also describe document layout in a durable and portable manner. In the range of XML/JSON <-> HTML+CSS <-> PDF <-> PS <-> RAW, it really does feel like there's something missing between HTML and PDF.

And it can't be LaTeX, because the document shouldn't be a programming language at all. "The document is a program" has proven itself to be a terrible scheme overall.

Re:Making a PDF that's larger than Germany by JKCalhoun on Thursday February 01, 2024 @11:24AM (#39217650)
ePub is kind of trying to be that? Or maybe that hews too close to HTML.

It can reflow but tries to paginate HTML ... the way printing a web page tries to paginate HTML, ha ha.

Re:Making a PDF that's larger than Germany by layer8 on Thursday February 01, 2024 @01:22PM (#39219304)
PDF includes optional document structure information. Most PDF creation software chooses to not generate it, though.