File talk:Chinese cardinal directions study panel.pdf

Should this be converted from a PDF to an image format?

Is there a reason why this should remain a PDF? PDFs retain formatting when printed, but that's compared to HTML, not image formats, IIRC. Sorry all I can do is point this out! — Geekdiva (talk) 00:43, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response.

The file was originally created in SVG, but during its confection I had noticed that the Chinese characters appearance would vary and depend on the fonts installed and available to the browser on the reader's machine. (*)

I've considered the best font to use was Arphic Kaitin, available to public domain by its manufacturer. Those fonts are very elegant, and almost seem like they're handwritten. But most machines outside China certainly don't have them installed.

I understand that SVG is a recommended standard in Wikipedia. But please notice that both PDF and SVG have similar vector graphics models. Since most of this image uses vector graphics, even in PDF it can be zoomed indefinedly without losing resolution, except for the bitmap image of the Southern Hemisphere (obtained from public domain). I have printed the PDF in 0.9m and 1.5m vynil panels with very good results.

One option considered for keeping using SVG was to transform the Chinese Characters into outlines, but that would make the file much larger and break the capacity to edit its contents, if needed. The SVG would be very hard to edit after such transformation.

With PDF format, we have all the same capacities of SVG regarding vector graphics, yet it is possible to embed the Chinese font into the PDF file, maintaining the original visual experience, independently of the installed fonts, browser, or PDF viewer on the reader's machine. The embedded font set was reduced to just the used characters and then compressed, resulting in a rather compact file of 657 KB.

The image was created in SVG and then transformed to PDF using the software Batik. I had thought about uploading also the original SVG file to accompany the PDF, but I could not find a good way to do that without leading to confusion, and in the end the PDF version showed to be the best format for visualizing the image.

That's why I've uploaded the image as a PDF file: to allow a better and uniform visual experience with the Chinese characters it uses.

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(*) Note: I'm almost certain that was the same perception of another collaborator that uploaded a new version, but then reversed it to the original. Pakua2004 (talk) 06:57, 16 April 2023 (UTC)