Re:Typst: How to create accessible PDFs from the start
by mmooss on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @12:25AM
(#45896658)
> Every single time I have had to interact with a PDF it has always been a total disaster.
This is obviously absurd, and we don't know what you really mean. Probably billions of people use PDFs; I expect hundreds of millions use them regularly. I use them all the time, no problem, they work great.
PDFs are also a rare format which is preserved and functions reliably over time (decades) over systems (just about anything you can name). If I have a document I want to read 10-20 or more years in the future, PDF is the best bet.
The far superior presentation of professionally prepared PDFs - layout, typography, formatting, etc - makes a large difference for me when reading long texts. Also, the markup works very well and is also preserved - I can read markup from entirely different systems going back decades, and the annotation I make today I can read in 2050.
This is obviously absurd, and we don't know what you really mean. Probably billions of people use PDFs; I expect hundreds of millions use them regularly. I use them all the time, no problem, they work great.
PDFs are also a rare format which is preserved and functions reliably over time (decades) over systems (just about anything you can name). If I have a document I want to read 10-20 or more years in the future, PDF is the best bet.
The far superior presentation of professionally prepared PDFs - layout, typography, formatting, etc - makes a large difference for me when reading long texts. Also, the markup works very well and is also preserved - I can read markup from entirely different systems going back decades, and the annotation I make today I can read in 2050.