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Making a PDF that’s larger than Germany (alexwlchan.net)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Some version of this has been floating around the Internet since 2007, probably earlier. This tweet is pretty emblematic of posts about this claim: it’s stated as pure fact, with no supporting evidence or explanation. We’re meant to just accept that a single PDF can only cover about half the area of Germany, and we’re not given any reason why 381 kilometres is the magic limit.

I started wondering: has anybody made a PDF this big? How hard would it be? Can you make a PDF that’s even bigger?

A few years ago I did some silly noodling into PostScript, the precursor to PDF, and it was a lot of fun. I’ve never actually dived into the internals of PDF, and this seems like a good opportunity.

Let’s dig in.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Fun fact, LaTeX is actually ~~NP~~turing-complete so you can program whatever in it AND make it beautiful

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

you mean turing complete?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Yes sorry ofc