The Editable PDF Initiative
The PDF file format is anachronous.<p>When the format was created, computers only had a few KBs of RAM. Yet the format should be capable of editing documents with thousand of pages. The format solves this issue by delegating the memory management to the user.<p>Also, the file was made with the assumption it was suppose to be printed, not shared. It is easier to hide parts of the document instead of removing the data.<p>A funny trivia. The PDF is suppose to be read from the end of file. That&#x27;s why some documents need to fully downloaded before they can display the first page. Of course, nowadays most PDF are linearized and load, at least, the first page right away.<p>Over the years specification got so complex it became very hard to implement a minimal editor, viewer, parser or generator. If the format was simpler, it would be possible to make &quot;save as PDF&quot; more accessible.<p>I&#x27;ve other issues with the typesetting and the way color is handled (it has a printer first approach), but I think this post got too long already. I just want to point out the spec supports so many pointless features such drawing in 3D space, movies, audio, HTML support, etc.<p>Finally, I don&#x27;t understand why most people are against a revision on the PDF format despite clearly having very little knowledge on how it works. I think multi person edition of the same entry with some version control can be useful. By the way, the format kinda let many people edit the document at once, as long as they are not working in the same part.