Looking At Tools #2: Paen to the Portable Document Format

Image Credit: Know Your Meme

Oh,  .pdf, I can't get enough of you. I think I am falling in love.

For so long, you were like some friend's little brother-- you were everywhere I went, kind of always there, but not very interesting, right?  I guess I thought you were just some kind of photo of a document.  But now, I  know you are so much more.

One of the first glimmers I had that you were special, .pdf, was when I realized that I could access you from my iPhone.  No need for Microsoft Word.  Just download you via iTunes, open you in "books", and there you are.  So full of information.

And I've known about your pseudo-legalistic functions-- that you can lock up information from a Word or a text document so that it cannot be edited or changed.  An archival sort of function.  I love that-  you are so stable.

But you are flexible, too.  With Acrobat Pro, you can be changed into a Word or a text document, and then I can edit your content.  The resulting document is a going to be new and different, not the original.  Not-- you.  This is what you mean to me--  the next time I get a lease from a tenant, it's YOU, .pdf, who will be my archival format.

Just lately I am realizing some of your other versatile and information rich qualities.
For instance, you can read yourself to me. This is my new fun thing, the new way to study.  Under the View menu, I put you on "Read Out Loud" and you read yourself.  You will read all the way to the end of the document, or read paragraph by paragraph, depending on what I tell you to do.  Clever, helpful, .pdf.

I realize that the fact that you are zoomable is pretty common these days.  Nearly every piece of text on the internet can be blown up to a larger size.  But you magnify so clearly, and so easily.  When I don't want eye strain, I just crank you up to 200%, and I don't have to squint or strain to make you out.
 You know that when I study, I zoom my you up to a comfortable visual level, turn on "Read Out Loud" and track you both visually and auditorily.  This helps me focus through the densest material... so sweet.  Your Hawking-like computer voice, reading your contents, has a lot of quirks of pronunciation and inflection, but really it is kind of cute.  I think that mentally correcting your reading-aloud quirks helps me stay focused.  And then at night, well, your monotonous tone lulls me in a way that rivals an audiobook by Deepak Chopkra.  Read me to sleep, .pdf.

I love the way I can highlight you, and make comments on you.  I can give your pictures tags and descriptions, search for a words and phrases in you, scan or screen grab stuff and turn it into you, and then back into a Word document that I can edit! You are magical, and have so much to give.  I want you with me always.  Hope my husband won't mind.