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Deurbanising the Web

Jason McBrayer jmcbray at carcosa.net

Mon Jul 19 15:05:36 BST 2021

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Stephane Bortzmeyer writes:

But the conclusion will surprise many of you: instead of Gemini, he
suggests… PDF.

I can see a lot of where he's coming from. In my opinion, if you needembedded images, mathematics, or complex tables or layout in a document,serving PDF/A (over Gemini) is an extremely valid and cromulent choice.

I still think there are significant problems with PDF, even if yourestrict it to PDF/A. Reflowing PDFs is *possible* now, but still kindof works like arse – try, for example, reading the D&D5E Player'sHandbook on a 6" eInk device, or a phone.

For a similar subset of problems, ePub is a great option, and far, farbetter on small screens, but since ePubs are, at base, zipped folders ofHTML files, you still have a subset of the "why not a subset of HTML"problem. I'm not 100% sure how restrictive the ePub specification is,though, so it might not be a real problem at all.

-- Jason McBrayer | “Strange is the night where black stars rise,jmcbray at carcosa.net | and strange moons circle through the skies, | but stranger still is lost Carcosa.” | ― Robert W. Chambers,The King in Yellow