Book People Archive

Re: The "Bookmarks" in a well-ordered PDF should be the page numbers

jose said:
>   when messages arrive in my inbox 
>    with claims I know to be wrong, 
>    I like to set the record straight.

and i appreciate that greatly, jose.

for one, it let me discuss this page-number thingee
at a level of complexity i would not have _dreamed_
of imposing out of the blue on the subscribers here.


>    No, it's a question of being accurate.

ok, but do you mean "accurate" 
according to the letter of the law,
or according to the spirit of the law?


>    Instead of writing that, you could have asked me 
>    if I knew how to  implement that rarely seen 
>    page-renumbering feature in order to 
>    make my digital reprint even better. :)

except i didn't want to tip my hand at that time.

and, if we assume that _you_ knew of the feature
back then, then it must have been the case that
you decided not to tip _your_ hand about it either,
because you didn't tell me i was wrong back then...        :+)


>   But in reality it _does_ exist.

in the reality of the program, a feature does exist.
in the reality of the real world, it might as well not.

which "reality" do you take to be more important?

of course, i'm just repeating myself now, so
i see no need for further philosophical talk
about the nature of existence, thank you...           :+)

further, aside from whether _a_ feature exists or not,
there is the more important question about whether
that particular feature actually _solves_the_problem_.
as you've seen since, i have argued that it does _not_...


>    Why should Adobe provide a free tool? 
>    The feature has been available for years. 
>    It isn't Adobe's fault that most third-party 
>    makers of free PDF software haven't included it.

why should adobe provide a free tool to do this?
that's a good question, and i've got a good answer.

adobe gets a _lot_ of mileage out of the fact that
the .pdf format is "free" (i.e., publicly documented),
and that .pdfs can be written with freeware drivers
(as well as cheap ones and shareware ones), _plus_
the reader-program is cross-platform and cost-free.

adobe even leverages this buy-in by offering a service
where you can upload a file to a website and have a .pdf
automatically made -- cost-free -- and e-mailed to you.

they are not doing this out of the kindness of their hearts.
the buy-in that they've gotten has made .pdf "ubiquitous".
(that's what it says in an adobe quarterly report i read, and
i'm inclined to agree with it, even if it's just a bit overstated.)

the fact that their .pd has become a de facto "standard" has
meant a lot of money has flowed into adobe's deep pockets,
to the point that it's now become their centerpiece.   indeed,
that report called acrobat "the crown jewel of the company".

they've even gone to the trouble of making it a "real" standard,
and lobbied the u.s. government to incorporate it into its flow.

i don't have too many problems with all that.   one perspective
is that adobe _earned_ that, by giving people a good product.
i happen to know that they also bought out some competition,
which is standard operating procedure for adobe, but so it goes.

however, given the tremendous buy-in they have gotten because
"pdf is free", it seems to me that they now have some _obligation_
to make the "free" term more than just a mere come-on buzzword.

specifically, things falling under the rubric of "basic functionality"
need to be explicitly included within the realm of the "free" arena.

_pagenumbers_are_basic_functionality_.

you don't get much more basic than pagenumbers, not with books.
i cannot remember the last time i saw a book without pagenumbers.

(i knew a poet who xeroxed a bundle of poems without pagenumbers,
but he maintained _their_very_absence_ *transformed* his creation to
"a work of art" from just "a book" -- that's how basic pagenumbers are.)

yet, for the last 10 years, and true up to this very day, adobe
hasn't given us a free tool that manages pagenumbers properly.
(and that's no white lie, so if i'm wrong about that, let me know.)

instead, you have to buy their "pro" version, which costs _hundreds_
of dollars, in order to be able to manipulate this basic functionality...

so i guess the message is "free is fine if you want funky pagenumbers,
but if you wanna do things right, you're gonna have to pay us money".
i dunno about you, but to me, that sounds a lot like bait-and-switch.

i think that's wrong.   i think it's a disservice to their de facto standard.

so yes sir, i think adobe should indeed give us such a tool.   for free.

(of course, the fact that adobe threatened to _sue_ microsoft when
redmond was planning to make .pdf native in their operating system
is an even better indication that adobe is fine with .pdf being "free"
only as long as they continue to make a huge chunk of change off it,
which should scare us to no end.   but that's a whole other topic, eh?)


>    Or just blustering now instead of 
>    admitting you were wrong? ;)

ok, just so everyone knows, and reads the following correctly,
i did observe -- and you should too -- the winky-smiley that
jose put on this, so we must remember this is all in good fun...

ok?

what i said was technically incorrect.

or -- if it's necessary to make you happy --
here it is, listen up:   what i said was wrong.

moreover, i said that something wrong _intentionally_,
which probably makes it even more of an abomination.

jose seems to want to imply that i didn't know about this feature,
and that i simply won't admit _that_ now.   i guess he thinks i would
rather depict myself as a teller of white lies than concede ignorance.

but i assure you i admit it immediately when i don't know something.

i've known about acrobat's "logical page numbers" for a long time;
as a programmer, i scrutinize the "preferences" dialog very closely
in programs similar to the ones i write, and it's always been there...

(indeed, the manual for the .pdf package i've used actually had these
"logical" pagenumbers, even though they match the .pdf pagenumbers
and are thus superfluous.   but yeah, if i'd never seen this feature used,
_ever_, i would've mentioned that in my response.   what i actually said
instead, though, was that i've only seen the feature used "very rarely".)

so, yeah, i told a white lie there, when i said that acrobat
has _no_ way to manage pagenumbers.   and i did that
because -- as i explained -- i wanted to do a magic trick
a little while down the line, and pull a rabbit out of my hat.

plus i didn't want to get into all the complexities about
why the acrobat "solution" really is not a solution at all...

so i just acted like their feature wasn't there at all...

but luckily, we've got jose the hawk watching over us to
right any wrongs (except when the wrongs are amusing)...       ;+)

-bowerbird

p.s.   your new version of the einstein book is a huge improvement!
having the pagenumbering be correct and consistent is very good!
you might not know, but i've been pointing to your digital reprints:
>   http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2006/08/librarians_hold_google_accountable.html#c22713

p.p.s.   also, people, if you haven't taken a look at the _index_ section
that jose created, take a look.   it's all hotlinked, which is very cool...
(jose, did you have to redo the links when you renumbered the .pdf?)