I honestly think PDF on the web needs to go the way of Flash. It sucks in every possible way.
Erika Hall @mulegirl
2 Dec 2019
The fact that most research papers are published as PDF, but not HTML is a real design and accessibility issue. Found a paper on design research that looks promising, and is freely available. But 3 vertical columns per page?!? Ouch.

Dec 3, 2019 · 5:55 AM UTC

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Replying to @stilkov
The reason why science papers are PDF is b/c even today they are still also (or even primarily) meant for printing.
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I know. Entirely true, but also very stupid
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Replying to @stilkov @heydonworks
This... and restaurant menus. 😂
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Replying to @stilkov @assaf
-100 on this.
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Replying to @stilkov @heydonworks
Show me the perfect print-layout without deep css knowledge
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Replying to @stilkov @_Nec
Yeah, if the OWP had the same level of support for equations, graphics, cross references, footnotes, endnotes and robust archival then PDF would return to being a print-only format.
Replying to @stilkov
I wouldn't want it to go away. I definitely think it's being misused, but I still see many benefits to it.
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Replying to @stilkov
I can open a single file PDF from 20 years ago which has all images, formulas, fonts etc. embedded. Should I try to run a node.js webserver in 20 years to have a nice interactive research paper which won't work in the browser anymore?
Replying to @stilkov
...pdf is a problem but...the only thing to not forget is that on this format, for the embeddig abilities, is based a lot of european laws about legally compliant archiving, digital sign and so on: a huge ecosystems both of softwares and hardwares...
Replying to @stilkov
In general it does, although there is also value in a portable document format as a single artifact.
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