“Bézier Curve Annotated Portable Document Format & PDF Scented Candle is a book-length essay on the PDF format, its constituting technology PostScript, and the mathematical principle used for character rendering that it is based on, called Bézier curve. Danny Snelson presents pictures and articles as research material, as well as print-on-demand artworks, often reproduced in their original format, linked by his comments and annotations, showing the whole range of reproductive possibilities made possible through PDF. PostScript and the Bézier curve are traced as revolutionizing the publishing sphere as they offered, for the first time, great interoperability and quality maintenance for digital documents as well as printers. Invented by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, they make up the foundation for Adobe Inc. products such as Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator, whose impact on publishing today cannot be stressed enough. The complete essay, which makes a point for the importance and media historical depth of PDF and its technologies, is overlaid by magenta Bézier curves to show the lack of quality loss granted by the algorithm even when zoomed in. The essay was published in PDF format as an addition to Full Stop Reviews Supplement #3 and simultaneously as a print-on-demand book on Lulu, putting the technologies shown throughout the text into action via a digital printer while at the same time granting its wide and lossless distribution as a digital file.” (Via APOD.LI entry description, ed. Andreas Bülhoff & Annette Gilbert)
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