PDF Is Still the Hardest File Format to Work With. Here's Why.

All tests run on an 8-year-old MacBook Air. I've spent months building a PDF tool. PDF is the most infuriating file format I've ever worked with. Not because it's poorly designed. Because it's been accumulating complexity since 1993 and the spec is 750 pages long. It's not a document format. It's a programming language. PDF files contain operators, operands, a stack-based execution model, and a coordinate system. A "page" is a program that draws itself. BT % Begin text /F1 12 Tf % Set font F1 at