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[–] 120 points 9 months ago (18 children)

Until you realize that a PDF is literally just a format based around a standard set of instructions used to print documents.

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  • [–] 165 points 9 months ago (11 children)
  • [–] 15 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Potable Document Format. Retains formatting and safe to consume.

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  • [–] 15 points 9 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    For those not in the know... PDF is a particular set of conventions for delivering peograms written in a programming language called "Postscript", and like all programs they can be hijacked to trigger unexpected results, including the delivery of software viruses. And yes, while those programs run in "sandboxes" that are supposed to prevent propagation of harm, such environments can fall in that purpose due to creative triggering of imperfections in the sandbox code by the "contained" Postscript code.

    Hence, quotes are used to convey lack of trust in the claim of safety.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago

    Next time someone asks me what PDF stands for, this is what I will tell them

    (I'm reflecting on how many times I've been asked what PDF stands for, because my comment would suggest it is a thing that happens often.

    Doofensmirtz_meme.jpeg: "if I had a nickel for every time someone asked me what PDF stood for, I'd have two nickels. — which isn't much, but it's weird that it happened twice"

    I think I'm just most people's token techy friend. Or more specifically, I'm the techy friend who also knows loads of random shit and really enjoys answering random questions)

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  • [–] 25 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Yeah, if you print to a printer what you're most often doing is saving it as an Adobe PostScript file and sending that to the printer. PDF is similar, just with extra bells and whistles.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago

    It was like that back in the eighties, until the manufacturers decided to save on the chips by moving functionality into the drivers. Which was basically the start of everyone's problems with printers.

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago

    Im not so sure. I bet more than half of the drivers out there produce PCL output, and there are a lot of printers that use other languages too like ZPL and a myriad of others.

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