Many things

[Jim Leonard]

der Mouse wrote:
>>I recently wanted to send something to someone relating to a
>>non-computer related project I'm working on, and due to what it is, I
>>don't want anyone being able to modify the file, but I don't mind
>>them printing it out, I was able to do this with PDF.
> 
> Sorry to burst your bubble, but you weren't.  All you were able to do
> is make it a bit harder.  (If it can be printed, it can be captured and
> modified - at least until they get DRM pushed into printers, and given
> the installed base, that won't be a for a while yet.)

Well, where do you stop?  DRM in video cards so that you can't take a screen 
capture?  DRM in monitors so that the picture blanks out when you turn your 
head?  DRM in the human optic nerve?  I mean, come on.

PDF is great for it's intended purpose:  Creating portable documents that can 
be viewed and printed regardless of the resolution of the output device.  A PDF 
I create with vector line art looks great on my 10-yr-old 300 DPI postscript 
printer, but on a 1200 DPI printer of today it is flawless.  I have seen a lot 
of misuse of PDF (scanning something and NOT OCR'ing it, turning the PDF into a 
100MB container for JPG files) but, overall, PDF is pretty darn good.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)                    http://www.oldskool.org/
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