Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Hunt down ads for non-Free PDF readers on 13th August

[Pater Mann]

Sam Tuke wrote:
> *Why:*
>
> Publicly funded institutions routinely advertise proprietary PDF reader
> applications on their websites, often stating that a particular vendor's
> product is "required" for completing basic civic tasks like paying tax or
> registering a vehicle.
>
> Yet Free Software PDF Readers exist for all major operating systems, which can
> be used to perform the same tasks without sacrificing the freedom of their
> users.

Unfortunately, they are not completely wrong (mostly but not
completely :-) - Free Software PDF Readers cannot perform *all* of the
same tasks as proprietary readers. Many of the documents available
from government Web sites contain interactive forms and very few of
the free PDF readers have even basic forms support. I use SumatraPDF
for viewing (in fact, it printed some PDF documents which a
"particular vendor's product" would not!) but I had to use Foxit PDF
Reader (free as in beer but not as in freedom) to fill in the probate
forms when my father died. However, Foxit did allow me to save the
results unlike that other vendor's product (which I haven't used in
years).

patermann