PDF Activity useless?
The Andromo PDF Activity works well as far as looking great and preserving all text (but not media) operations. Nonetheless, the Adobe PDF Reader defeats the use of an Andromo PDF. Why? Because the Adobe Reader automatically saves a copy (a second file) of the PDF being read when the user exits the program in any way (it gives the user no choice).
The second file is named "filename" with a "-1" added (i.e., "filename-1.pdf"). If the user has made any changes (e.g., highlighting), the changes are preserved in the "-1" file.
The next time the user opens the PDF, he get the original PDF, not the "-1" version. As far as he knows, all his changes (highlights) are lost. In addition, every time he closes the PDF, the Adobe Reader adds another new copy of the original PDF file (i.e., "-2", "-3", "-4", etc) whether he has made any changes or not.
We can't expect users to understand this problem or even understand the file system or how to access it. A user who makes changes (e.g., highlighting) is frustrated. A user who doesn't make any changes unknowingly adds a PDF copy file every time he closes the PDF file thereby clogging a file folder with dozens of PDF copies taking up memory.
Is there any workarounds for this? I would like to hear some ideas.
One workaround would be to instruct users to use another PDF reader instead of the Adobe Reader. It seems a little farfetched to expect that much of users. In addition, other PDF readers that do not automatically save a copy PDF file also do not allow changes (e.g., highlighting). This is a shortcoming that will frustrate a certain percentage of users.
There don't seem to be any PDF readers that offer the features of the Adobe PDF reader (e.g. highlighting) and enable users to exit while saving the original PDF file (thus avoiding the problem).
I have therefore concluded that the PDF Activity of Andromo is essentially useless due to this dilemma. The last thing we want to do is frustrate users.
Does anyone have a contrary view? Please give details.
Thanks.
Comments
Obviously we don't have any control over how an external PDF viewer such as Adobe Reader is implemented.