On 19/03/2019 00.17, nospam wrote:
In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:

| Technically yes, but the PDF is displayed in my browser and has links to
click just like a webpage.
|
Not to nag, but you might also consider not allowing PDFs
to load in your browser. They're a common attack method.
They're not webpages. They only load at all because Adobe
has been trying, for many years, to find a way to hijack
the Internet. (Flash, PDF, AIR.)

adobe isn't trying to hijack anything, certainly not with pdf, which
isn't even owned by them.

This is inexact.

it is not.

There is a published PDF standard, which they no longer own.

i said that.

But they
can add, and do add, additional features that only them support properly
(because they don't publish).

as can others, however, content creators are not required to use them,
and it would be foolish to do so. it's rare that a pdf on a web site is
anything fancy.

On the contrary. Most government forms and complex forms I have seen use
them.


Usually if a PDF is linked it's because you want a copy.

not necessarily.

So it makes sense to set your browser so that you
download PDFs. Then you don't have to keep going
back to the website every time you want to look at it.

it makes a lot more sense to read it in the browser and save a copy if
desired, rather than have to switch to a separate reader just to see
the pdf and then trash it if it's not worth keeping.

Actually, the browser always downloads the PDF to temporary storage
before rendering it. In theory this can be done in memory, but why would
they? It is more work.

browsers download everything to temporary storage, and whether it's in
memory or a cache file depends on available resources and not relevant
anyway.

the point is that a user can click on a pdf and read it directly in the
browser just as they do with any other web page. it's just another
link. if the pdf is interesting enough to keep, click another button to
save it, otherwise, close the window (or click the back button) and
it's gone.

which just copies the file from temporary directory to final directory.


the workflow mayayana describes is to always save a pdf in a separate
file, then switch to a different app to read it, and if it's not worth
keeping, switch to explorer to trash it. that's a lot less efficient.



--
Cheers, Carlos.