[Linux-aus] [Osia-discuss] Tax office - Open Source policy

[Sridhar Dhanapalan]

2009/8/31 Bret Busby <bret at busby.net>:
> One of the problems with PDF, now, is that it is no longer standardised,
> and bodgy PDF files have been distributed, that are not viewable, or,
> that cause problems, with different PDF viewers. In this, I have
> experienced PDF files that have been viewable using gPDF or xPDF, but,
> not using Acrobat Reader.

PDF is an ISO standard, if that means anything any more after the
OOXML debacle...

The problem is more likely due to differing implementations of that
standard. If the reader and/or the generator have bugs in their
implementation (and all software has bugs), the result might not be
what you expect.

As for your earlier comment about the DOC 'format', it's not really a
format at all. It's more of a binary memory dump of that particular
version of MS Word. The result is that there are many different
versions of this 'format'. There's enough difficulty in reading an old
DOC file in a later version of MS Word, leave alone trying to
read/write it in a different application.

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