# Why don't magazines have digitial subscriptions that are just HTML, and not .PDF? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 30, 2011, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-magazines-have-digitial-subscriptions-that-are-just-html-and-not-pdf/594651 "2011-08-30T17:46:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-magazines-have-digitial-subscriptions-that-are-just-html-and-not-pdf/594651/21 "2011-08-30T19:34:42Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > That’s interesting, what magazines have an HTML option? I was referring to the fact that most magazines put their content online in HTML format, such as [Time Magazine](http://www.time.com/time/magazine) or [National Geographic](http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/09/table-of-contents). ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-magazines-have-digitial-subscriptions-that-are-just-html-and-not-pdf/594651/22 "2011-08-30T20:07:52Z")
A PDF is one file to download. If it was in HTML, you would have to download many files, and they would need to be in a specific hierarchy of directories, and the internal links in the HTML would have to be the file:// links (so they would work on your system), but then they wouldn’t work when you viewed the pages on the magazine’s website. It’s a lot of pointless hassle when it can just be done as a PDF instead, where everything’s in one file. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-magazines-have-digitial-subscriptions-that-are-just-html-and-not-pdf/594651/23 "2011-08-30T20:14:06Z")
> [@Palooka](#): > > Try to copy and paste it. I don’t know about the _Scientific American_ ones,\* but in my experience most PDFs, including those of copyright material sold from behind expensive paywalls (such as academic journals), do allow you to copy and paste text. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-magazines-have-digitial-subscriptions-that-are-just-html-and-not-pdf/594651/24 "2011-08-30T22:40:16Z")
> [@Hippy\_Hollow](#): > > I never understood the hate for PDF files, either. I do hate Adobe Reader, though. Using Apple Preview works perfectly well for me with no issues whatsoever. Valid point. The overwhelming majority of my dislike for PDF files can be traced to Adobe Reader, or more specifically, their browser plug-ins, which probably crash or hang browsers more than any other plug-in I’ve ever seen. > [@gaffa](#): > > It is impossible to block the ads in a PDF and trivially easy to block ads in HTML. Not so. When dealing with a print publication where you want the _same ads_ online in the same locations, the ads are stored on the same server as the rest of the images, in the same format. There is no way for an ad blocker to tell that 238409275.jpg is a photo that goes with the article and 25706539.jpg is an ad when they come from the same directory on the same server. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-magazines-have-digitial-subscriptions-that-are-just-html-and-not-pdf/594651/25 "2011-08-30T23:30:31Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:24, topic:594651”] Valid point. The overwhelming majority of my dislike for PDF files can be traced to Adobe Reader, or more specifically, their browser plug-ins, which probably crash or hang browsers more than any other plug-in I’ve ever seen. [/QUOTE] that and QUickTime are fighting it out for that honor. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-magazines-have-digitial-subscriptions-that-are-just-html-and-not-pdf/594651/26 "2011-08-31T02:45:51Z")
Adobe Reader browser plugin is, so I am led to believe, also a major conduit for malware infections. I use an alternate PDF viewer (PDF XChange viewer) by default, and I set PDFs to download by default. (I originally set things up this way because of the already noted tendency of the Adobe plugin to crash the browser.) Every so often I see a little PDF file get automatically downloaded from a page that does not seem to have any reason to want to display a PDF. I once asked about this on The Dope, and was assured that they were malware files, designed to exploit flaws in Adobe Reader. I have seen quite a lot of these download, but never got an infection from them as I immediately delete them, and do not allow them to load in Reader. (I do keep a copy of Adobe Reader about, however, as, very occasionally, a PDF does not display quite right in PDF XChange Viewer.) Actually, despite these precautions, I know of at least one site (a paywalled site for scientific journals), that, despite my settings, somehow still forces my browser to display PDFs within the browser, and through Adobe Reader rather than PDF XChange viewer. Fortunately the site has never had malware on it in my experience, and the malware authors that use these fake PDF files do not (yet) seem to use this technique (whatever it is) to force their files to load into Adobe Reader. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-magazines-have-digitial-subscriptions-that-are-just-html-and-not-pdf/594651.md?page=1)