{"id":11833,"date":"2011-01-04T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-04T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/2011\/01\/04\/from-inside-the-redmond-reality-distortion-field-why-publish-documents-in-pdf\/"},"modified":"2011-01-04T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-04T07:00:00","slug":"from-inside-the-redmond-reality-distortion-field-why-publish-documents-in-pdf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20110104-00\/?p=11833","title":{"rendered":"From inside the Redmond Reality Distortion Field: Why publish documents in PDF?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few years ago, the Windows&nbsp;7 team developed a document to introduce technology writers to the features of Windows&nbsp;7. The document was released in PDF format, which created quite a stir among certain people trapped inside <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stepto.com\/Lists\/Posts\/Post.aspx?ID=486\"> the Redmond Reality Distortion Field<\/a>, who indignantly complained,<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"q\"><p> Why are we releasing this document in PDF format? Shouldn&#8217;t it be in docx or XPS? I would expect people interested in Windows&nbsp;7 to be willing to use more Microsoft technology. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> Um, hello from the real world. It&#8217;s the people who are critical of Windows&nbsp;7 who are <i>least<\/i> likely to use Microsoft technology!\n &#8220;Okay, so Microsoft has this document telling me about their new product, but it&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.zdnet.com\/Bott\/?p=35\"> in some Microsoft proprietary file format that requires me to install a custom viewer that works only in Internet Explorer<\/a>? You&#8217;ve gotta be kidding me.&#8221;\n No wonder people hate Microsoft.\n It&#8217;s like handing out brochures titled &#8220;Gr&uuml;nde, warum du Deutsch lernen solltest.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> <b>Bonus plug<\/b>: Stephen Toulouse <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stepto.com\/Lists\/Posts\/Post.aspx?ID=641\"> bookified his blogerations<\/a>. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.stepto.com\/Lists\/Posts\/Post.aspx?ID=642\">Part 2: The Hardbackening<\/a>.) I&#8217;ve read the softcopy of his book. Good stuff. And I would&#8217;ve endorsed his book even if he didn&#8217;t promise me a personalized copy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few years ago, the Windows&nbsp;7 team developed a document to introduce technology writers to the features of Windows&nbsp;7. The document was released in PDF format, which created quite a stir among certain people trapped inside the Redmond Reality Distortion Field, who indignantly complained, Why are we releasing this document in PDF format? Shouldn&#8217;t it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-11833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-other"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"<p>A few years ago, the Windows&nbsp;7 team developed a document to introduce technology writers to the features of Windows&nbsp;7. The document was released in PDF format, which created quite a stir among certain people trapped inside the Redmond Reality Distortion Field, who indignantly complained, Why are we releasing this document in PDF format? Shouldn&#8217;t it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}