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Comment by codesuela | Hacker News Reader

or use Google Documents instead of Hybrid PDFs where again you need LibreOffice to edit them.

I don't know if GDocs still has this problem, but when I first started using it, it seemed like they would do some update every few months that would break all my formatting. I used it mainly for storing guitar tablature, so when the formatting broke, I lost the music, some of it forever (if I couldn't remember the timing). I stopped using it a few years ago because of this.

Actually I just checked my resume that I have stored there (that copy was last touched in 2010), and the formatting is destroyed. I just exported a spreadsheet to PDF, and the cell alignment has shifted. Hmm. I also have a document that seems to be shared with me (shows up in my GDocs list) and I have no idea who the person is who created it.

> when I first started using it, it seemed like they would do some update every few months that would break all my formatting

You can now use it to store arbitrary files in their original format and view them through their webinterface when convenient. It has certain limitations like not displaying tables (or their contents) in .doc files but otherwise works well, pdfs generated from latex are displayed flawlessly as far as I've tested it.

Never used Google Docs. Don't you, in that case, require

a) that I have a Google account (not sure)

and

b) limit my access to the document that you sent me to times when I'm online (unless I go ahead and export it to another format and save it locally. Probably as text or pdf, depending on whether I want to edit or read)?

I assume b) is a given. If a) is true as well then I'd consider sending Google Docs links just as rude as .doc etc.

a) I think, depends on the level at which the document is shared. If it is public, anyone can find using search and edit it. If it is accessible to anyone with the document link, then anyone who can discover the document can edit it. If it is shared with a list of people (or a group) then you need to login to authenticate yourself. The last is, I believe, the only solution to the problem.

I don't think there exists a ubiquitous solution for sharing printable-well-formatted documents that require no special skills for formatting. .DOC will require the person on the other end to have MS Word and .ODT Libre Office (which is no way good enough for anything ATM). There are also other replacements to Google Docs, I haven't tried any as Google Docs fulfilled most of the requirements of my minimal collaborative editing but I am told that Zoho works really well.

a) The person publishing the document has full control over who has access and can edit it. You can allow anyone to view it, only people with a link (still no Google Account required from them, the link itself acts as a key/password), users from your domain... it's pretty flexible.

b) You can download the original file or, when Google format are used, export to a format convenient for you.

I use Google Docs that way constantly. It's by far the easiest and most reliable way I found to share a document, especially spreadsheets, with someone I haven't worked with before.

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