PDFs are essentially compressed Postscript, which is Turing complete, so a PDF i... | Hacker News

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		queuebert on Dec 24, 2024 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Why are cancer guidelines stuck in PDFs? PDFs are essentially compressed Postscript, which is Turing complete, so a PDF in theory can do anything you want.

tonyedgecombe on Dec 30, 2024 [–]

The big distinction between PostScript and PDF was the removal of the language operators[1]. Adobe Distiller unrolled the PostScript language to create a file without the code.

[1] A small part remained for defining calculations as well as support for PostScript fonts.

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