bityard • 8 days ago

Not just web browsers, Acrobat (and probably other PDF readers) have supported executing Javascript in PDFs for decades.

5
unnouinceput • 8 days ago

I was joking in 2007, when I was working at Siemens, to my boss, that an Excel cell can contain God and the Multiverse when I put an ActiveX inside that was basically a program I made which would draw a 3D animation based on parameters contained on other cells. Let's say the boss was impressed though for me was just basic OLE.

I see from time to time that younger generations reinvent/rediscover the wheel and I chuckle.

Aaron2222 • 8 days ago

Doesn't work in Preview unfortunately.

1 reply
jeffhuys • 7 days ago

Fortunately*

brumar • 8 days ago

This is even in the ISO standard now

pimlottc • 8 days ago

Which makes sense, why would browsers randomly add JS to PDF if it wasn’t already part of the standard?

1 reply
kzrdude • 8 days ago

What a nightmare that JS is a part of the PDF standard. I suppose that it's optional.

swyx • 7 days ago

why??? for what possible secure white hat reason could you want to run js in pdfs??!? is nobody sane running the pdf org?

1 reply
andreamonaco • 3 days ago

Yeah, I agree.

I first met an interactive PDF when filing a form for some state matter (I live in Italy).

I thought that it was over-engineered and dangerous.

Also, this kind of things tend to gratuitously exclude non-mainstream (especially free) software.