[LINK] Government gives thumbs down to PDF format

[Birch, Jim]

Fernando Cassia wrote:

> In fact, PDFs are rarely printed nowadays.

Perhaps not, however, as I understand it, the PDF was designed as a way of getting (close to) the same physical output from different devices.

> Anything above 2400dpi is overkill, unless you´re in the fine arts business. In fact, last I heard, commercial magazines were printed at 2400 dpi. Today´s desktop lasers are 1200dpi, half resolution. Nothing to worry about (in other words, software interpolation can handle going from 2400dpi to 1200dpi just fine).

So an A4 2400 dpi image, say the front cover of an annual report, composed of text and high res photos would for good quality printing at 32 bit colour take 2400x2400x8x11x4 bytes = 2 Gb.  It can be compressed but you start to loose crisp edges and fine lines on good quality paper so no one does this - there's too much potential downside.  (This seemed mad to me at first coming from an information economy point of view.)  That's what goes to the printer.  If the same document, eg, an annual report, is placed on the web you produce a low res version at a fraction of the size that looks good on screen and prints ok on a commodity printer.

> You are in the advertising industry

The advertising industry and I are no longer an item!  I was never a graphic type - I just managed the associated IT systems.  Kinda like the proverbial eunuch in the harem: I knew what they did but I couldn't do it myself.  I've been in Health IT for several years now. 

> In fact, that´s the problem with graphics designers as well, when talking about documents, you guys don´t think about INFORMATION, you think about ASTHETICS and IMAGES.

> When I open a PDF I want to READ something. That might or might not include images as an accessory to give meaning to the information, but the main purpose is to ACQUIRE some information (text= and understand something (or read a good book about fiction and politics, for that matter).

Me too.  However, while the advertising and design industries, may have a self-serving element of creating its own business, but they aren't completely stupid.  Eggheads like us might love solid hunks of text and often determinedly try to "look through" the design to the "real" information but most regular folks don't.  People respond to design - things like images, layout, colour elements, font shapes, and so on - largely unconsciously and this emotional response frames their reception - or rejection - of the document, and its content.  You can't tell a book by its cover, but it's been found to be a primary sales mechanism.

The utility of design is that aesthetically pleasing objects appear to be more effective so are actually easier to learn, use, and assimilate.  Crazy? Maybe, but that's how we're wired.  Historically, design component of virtually any made object has increased over time, and it's not about to stop.  (See "Emotional Design" by Donald Norman if you're interested.)

- Jim


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