Portable Document Format is a useful tool for creating printer consistent documents. In a print-centric world, they made a ton of sense. The output should match the designer vision. The assumption was the Internet was just the vehicle to get instructions to the printer.

The world has changed. After my printer died 5 years ago, I didn’t bother replacing it. People don’t often send a form expecting users to print & write-fill or type-fill & print. They mostly give web page forms that were collected into a database. When I encounter a PDF, it usually paperwork: a K-12 school form or a medical form.* Of late, restaurant menus. All of them have other technology a decade behind, so not really surprising.

Most of the time, I am trying to read a PDF on my phone, which is annoying. It would be awesome if the phone apps could convert the text to something readable.

Been a long time since I dabbled in the web design space, but I suspect that the internal structures of the format makes this challenging. I remember the files being fill of instructions for how to present it on paper. The same were used to show it on the desktop computer screen. The ask here is for it to have an option for a phone screen interpretation. That could mean bloat if they add mobile instructions.

* I guess I ignored work. We have them everywhere. Agreements, manuals, meeting notes, agendas, quotes, payment requests. Most of these, other than assuming a print version will be made for a permmanent record, I don’t understand why the PDF format.