Pages, some stolen, some original

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Google Versus Adobe

I have quit using Adobe Reader. Seems like whenever I want to use it, it decides in needs to update itself, which means I have to wait, and when it is done updating I find that someone has moved the controls and I have to go look for them, which means more time wasted. There are probably ways to get around these problems, but I've had enough, and I just don't care, not when I can use Google. Google has it's own problems, but at least it doesn't change their user interface every six weeks. In this case I just download a 14 megabyte PDF file, just to see if it might contain anything interesting, and when I tried to open it I remember that I don't have Adobe Reader installed, so I upload it to Google Drive (which is their new name for their document service). Drive offers to convert the document to Google format. This has its pros and cons. On the pro side, the space used to store the converted file doesn't get charged against your allotment. On the minus side, the conversion isn't always perfect. In this case the conversion didn't work at all: FILE TOO LARGE it tells me after it has been grinding away for a few seconds. Two megabytes is the limit. Well, no shinola Sherlock, if you had looked before you started you would have known the file was too large before you even started. But that would have required thinking, wouldn't it, ya big dummy? You'd think that since it has already started the upload business it could just go on and upload the unconverted file, but no, all work done so far is just discarded. So I have to repeat the upload request and specify NO conversion this time. What would be nice is if they uploaded the file, and then tried to convert it. If the conversion failed, you would at least have the original file, which you could at least look at, and then, if you are worried about space, delete.

1 comment:

  1. I recommend Foxit reader for PDFs.

    Stable.

    Compatible.

    Less malware attacks on it.

    ReplyDelete