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Comment by mr_toad | Hacker News Reader

I hate the banal lack of imagination that goes into producing documents that look the same as dead tree documents have looked for the last 100 years, even though few people actually print them out any more.

This isn’t the 1980’s. We have better technology.

Given source code there’s no reason the document couldn’t be made available in a variety of formats, including more accessible formats than PDF.

But we stick to avatistic document representations because that’s what everyone has always done.

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> documents that look the same as dead tree documents have looked for the last 100 years

In many cases we are talking about documents written using brand-new notation never used in print, but only on chalkboards or scribbled on scratch paper (by the author).

It just happens that LaTeX is a more expressive and precise tool for expressing arbitrary semi-structured 2-dimmensional symbolic formulas than available alternatives.

What better technology do you have in mind? HTML? Because as much as I like it, I find myself converting HTML to PDF every now and then so I can annotate, paginate, and yes, print it. PDF isn't perfect, but the art of typesetting is informed by much more than the physical properties of paper. Reducing communication to a static artifact divided into page-sized chunks is a useful feature for scholarly writing. Being able to produce physical copies of a document that you can give away for free, even if most people will read the document on an electronic device requiring a power source, is a feature. Writing static content that really takes advantage of the web's unique features [1] is hard!

[1] https://meltingasphalt.com/interactive/going-critical/

Everybody should be writing and sharing org-mode files.

I’d prefer a format that automatically adjusted things like page and font size to whatever I’m reading on, whether that’s reactive HTML or an ebook format.

And some e-readers do support two column layouts, although it only makes sense if you have a wide screen.

I hate having to pan and scan a PDF file on my phone, and the fixed pagination only makes sense when printed. Even on most desktop screens a letter/a4 page is too long.

I'd like those features too, but unfortunately for reference material I find annotation and pagination more important. Annotation is broken in HTML/EPUB because there's no way to make my annotations portable across devices without vendor lock-in. Pagination is broken because HTML documents rarely contain paragraph numbers or other useful pinpoints, and browsers aren't as good as PDF readers at keeping track of your position in a long document. These are solvable problems, but until they are solved I find HTML unusable for anything that takes more than 15 minutes to read. I suspect that most people who consider PDF obsolete rarely spend that much time on a single document.

Agreed. For anything complicated, I’ll always download the pdf. I don’t really find it burdensome pan and zoom a pdf, even on mobile. It seems to work a lot better than publishers attempts at producing web versions of papers, which I find generally useless.

> reactive HTML or an ebook format

Genuine question but can you think of a website that uses reactive HTML properly and mind sharing it? I find that most websites seem to just put a maximum width on a page and call it a day.

Generally I find myself wishing more webpages acted like a static document than the other way around. It's always guaranteed I can scroll and zoom in a PDF, which guarantees it's readable even if they layout is not the best.

I utterly despise the layout of academic papers. They’re garbage. Two column layouts have no place in the digital age.

Academic papers should have rich media. High resolution images and video.

Bah hum bug!

Strange, I find the compressed width of two columns perfect for mobile phones.

I also find it easier to read on physical paper. Honestly I read faster when things are two column (speed readers will tell you why)

Really?

I find myself scrolling down then up, down then up. I also have to manually control the zoom so text fills my screen width. Then I had to scroll left and right. And when I want to scroll vertically I have to be careful to not screw up my horizontal position. It’s super frustrating.

I don’t think a single blog in the world uses a two column view. If it were an actually useful format for sharing information digitally then it would be more prevalent.

Double tap the text column and it auto-fits. When you reach the end give it a big ol’ swipe from the opposite corner and it will pull the other column into view.

At least in iOS...

> I don't think a single blog in the world…

Well, yeah, you don't typically print blogs. Remember that academic publications are still printed, and columnar presentation can be very useful for annotation.

> because that's what everyone has always done

And we still print them out. People still prefer to read on paper. This doesn't change no matter how much the digital revolution wages on.

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