The world has changed a lot in 30 years. In that time we've gone from carrying around
Walkmans to carrying around Smart Phones.
We're constantly connected and forever looking for ways to streamline
the mundane.
To that end, the advent of the Internet has gone a long way
towards eradicating the drudgery of things like pen and paper for the
convenience of keyboard and mouse. One
company, Adobe, has labored tirelessly to further that goal.
The PDF was their creation and it's formed the foundation of
many a product manual and job application.
It's been around for two decades and over the years has
added features like security, markup and even the ability to create forms that
you can fill in without compromising the original document.
With such a long history you'd think the PDF would spell the
end of the hard copy. Millions of trees
would be saved, thousands of hours reclaimed from the printer queue.
Life would be better...
Except a few people out there didn't get the message.
The worst of which are those who insist on paper forms like
job applications. Even worse than
that? People who make PDF's that require
input but don't create them to allow for it.
It forces the hapless recipient of this DEAD PDF to print it out, fill
it in then scan it again as yet another DEAD PDF.
What is the point of having an online process if you have to
kill a forest of trees to complete it?
It's a pet peeve and a huge waste of time. It's even more embarrassing when it's a tech
company that does it.
So, new rule...
If you're going to send somebody a form online, make sure it
can be filled out ONLINE!
I can't think of anything that's more 1985 than writer's
cramp.
