WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.480 Chances are you don't spend a ton of time thinking about the venerable PDF, 00:00:04.480 --> 00:00:08.480 unless you have to edit one without paying Adobe however much money in order to do it. 00:00:09.040 --> 00:00:14.960 So why are PDFs even a thing? They're annoying to edit, they don't convert to other formats very 00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:22.000 well, and they don't look all that different from regular Word documents. And why is print 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:29.520 to PDF a thing? To answer, it helps to look at what PDF stands for, portable document format. 00:00:29.520 --> 00:00:36.000 You see, PDF was introduced by Adobe back in 1993 because there was a demand for documents to be 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:40.960 portable, and not just in the sense that you could stick them on a floppy diskette and take 00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:46.960 them with you to the office in your Geometro. The idea was to make sure that a PDF document 00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:52.960 would look exactly the same on any computer that opened it, as long as they were using a document 00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:59.040 viewer program that supported PDF. As a counter example, if you've ever tried to open a Word 00:00:59.040 --> 00:01:04.080 document that includes a font that you don't have installed on your computer, the document won't 00:01:04.080 --> 00:01:09.840 end up looking as the creator intended. PDFs are designed to alleviate issues such as this by 00:01:09.840 --> 00:01:15.440 including everything that's needed to display the document correctly in a single file. This includes 00:01:15.440 --> 00:01:21.600 fonts, as well as support for vector graphics if the specific PDF includes non-photographic images. 00:01:22.240 --> 00:01:27.840 And back when PDFs first became a thing, the problem of documents not being rendered consistently 00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:33.360 was even worse than it is today, partly due to the large number of word processing 00:01:33.360 --> 00:01:38.560 and desktop publishing applications that were floating around. This became a huge selling 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:44.000 point for the mass market, as the IRS started electronically distributing its tax forms in 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:49.680 the mid-1990s to ensure that every taxpayer would be able to view and print them accurately. 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:53.760 And even these days, if you need to send something off to have hard copies printed, 00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:59.120 a PDF is a really good way to ensure that whatever comes out on the paper is the same 00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:04.320 as what appeared on your screen, hence that print to PDF option that we discussed earlier. 00:02:04.320 --> 00:02:10.400 So okay Linus, I get it, PDFs do serve an actual purpose, but why do I have to pay 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:16.160 for the privilege of editing one in Adobe? So back when Adobe introduced PDF to the masses, 00:02:16.160 --> 00:02:21.520 it was proprietary, so other companies had to pay them if they wanted compatibility. 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:27.760 However, PDF was made an open standard in 2008, but as you've probably already experienced, 00:02:27.760 --> 00:02:33.360 that doesn't mean that it's super convenient to edit or create one. For example, Microsoft Word 00:02:33.360 --> 00:02:40.160 can convert documents to and from PDF, but it often doesn't convert the content to look exactly 00:02:40.160 --> 00:02:45.840 as the original PDF did, which gives some insight as to why Adobe made the PDF an open 00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:53.520 standard in the first place. Although anyone can write PDF-compatible software, Adobe had a 15-year 00:02:53.520 --> 00:02:59.040 head start, and because they actually developed the format, they have a huge leg up in focusing 00:02:59.040 --> 00:03:05.680 on creating the best software to work with PDFs, which they gladly charge money for making up 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:10.480 for the fact that PDF is an open standard now. But that doesn't mean that there aren't free 00:03:10.480 --> 00:03:15.680 solutions out there. One notable one is LibreOfficeDraw, which is part of a larger open source 00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:21.440 office suite, but many people do still opt to pay 13 or 15 bucks a month to use the official 00:03:21.440 --> 00:03:27.600 Adobe PDF solutions in order to get an experience that, while sometimes not the most user-friendly, 00:03:27.600 --> 00:03:32.880 just plain works in just about every use case. It's why, even though it isn't a trivial amount 00:03:32.880 --> 00:03:39.040 of money, PDFs have become a popular way to digitize important historical and legal documents. 00:03:39.040 --> 00:03:44.400 I mean, you don't want to have someone sign a super official contract in a file format that won't 00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:49.200 be rendered the same way every time, then come back later and have some kind of dispute over it 00:03:49.200 --> 00:03:54.640 because it looked different on their machine. Which, hmm, now I know why student loan servicers 00:03:54.640 --> 00:03:59.760 only use PDFs. Thanks for watching, guys! You can like, dislike if you felt that way, 00:03:59.760 --> 00:04:04.480 check out our other videos, or leave a comment if you have a suggestion for a future Fast as 00:04:04.480 --> 00:04:08.640 Possible that you would like to see. And don't forget to subscribe!