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My issue with PDFs was the fact they are hard to read on smaller screens because the format isn’t natively easy to reflow.

I guess another issue today is RAG for AI: how can a pdf be chunked in meaningful pieces. Funny to see old methods such as document layout analysis being used for RAG.

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PDFs are, in my opinion, entirely unsuitable for anything that isn't intended to be printed.

Not necessarily. The clarity offered is helpful if you need to cite something, e.g. for a paper, and know exactly which page it's coming from - though this only works for book scans and is a somewhat specific use. Or when you need everyone to have exactly the same words on exactly the same page. Quite helpful for standardization.

> e.g. for a paper, and know exactly which page it's coming from - though this only works for book scans and is a somewhat specific use.

I'd include that as "intended to be printed". I should have said "unsuitable for anything that isn't printed matter", though.

In the purely electronic world, there are much better ways of achieving the standardization you're talking about that don't come with the rather large downsides of PDFs.

I didn't technically intend for it to be printed, but yes, I will get on board with "unsuitable for anything that isn't printed matter".

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