• World Wildlife Federation Creates Unprintable .WWF File Format to Save Trees
    58 replies, posted
[QUOTE]The World Wildlife Federation announced the creation of its first file format, WWF, designed as a replacement for PDF. It's essentially identical to PDF, except for one key difference: It can't be printed. The WWF hopes this will reduce unnecessary paper use, or at least bring some attention to the fact that lots of paper use is unnecessary. Though PDFs are impressively flexible and useful paper-replacement files, many people and businesses are simply more comfortable printing physical copies. In some cases, with larger businesses, universities, and other organizations, that can mean ridiculous amounts of paper used and discarded for little reason. The environmental impact of paper is a contentious topic, one I'm sure will be discussed passionately in the comments (i.e. theoretical sustainability vs. illegal logging and optional governmental "guidelines"), but anyone that's worked in an office knows how much unnecessary printing happens on a regular basis. The WWF format is essentially a plugin (Mac-only for now, but coming to Windows soon) that allows the user to save any document as a WWF. Those files can be opened and viewed in most programs used to open PDFs, except they can't be printed (and they add a little note about saving paper to the bottom of documents). Will the WWF format actually do any good, besides increasing awareness? It can't stop a document from being printed, of course--users can always print screenshots. But in certain settings, especially business or educational, it might make sense to make it at least irritating to print some documents. A professor could forbid students from printing a hundred-page coursepack, for example. That's all assuming anybody actually embraces the format, which is doubtful, but it's not necessarily the worst idea ever. [img]http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/Screen%20shot%202010-12-10%20at%2011.24.01%20AM.png[/img][/QUOTE] Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-12/world-wildlife-federation-creates-unprintable-wwf-format-save-trees[/url]
What the shit. Who thought this would be a good idea?
[img]http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/8986/windowsxpprintscreen2.jpg[/img]
What if you save it then change format to pdf
I'm going to print stuff I don't even need just in spite of their good willed intentions. Take that Wildlife Federation.
Seems pretty pointless to me. There is this thing called 'cancel print', apparently they never heard of it.
The idea's cute. Dumb, but cute.
That's stupid and worthless.
Go back to File, go to Save As, than click on PDF. Problem solved.
This is why we fucking plant trees, like potatoes. Are potatoes endangered?
oh no all those poor tree farms
[QUOTE=nVidia;26661893]This is why we fucking plant trees, like potatoes. Are potatoes endangered?[/QUOTE] Trees aren't endangered.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;26661984]Trees aren't endangered.[/QUOTE] So we must protect them?
Since you probably need extra stuff to even view this, it will probably not be popular. And I bet there is a program that allows you to print it in just a few weeks.
cool
[QUOTE=nVidia;26661893]This is why we fucking plant trees, like potatoes. Are potatoes endangered?[/QUOTE] I'm not sure what their logic is, but as a country the U.S. has a metric fuckton of paper waste. Moves to reduce printing unnecessary shit just saves space in the long run, which is nice. Not that anyone would do such an asinine thing as make documents in a worthless format, but the news story made at least somebody think about how much useless bullshit they print on a daily basis.
most paper comes from responsible tree nurseries, this whole "OMG YOUR KILLING THE ENVIRONMENT BY PRINTING" thing is just more activist bullshit most of our oxygen comes from plankton anyway, we should be focusing on preserving and harnessing the ocean
this is fucking retarded
What a waste of electricity
[QUOTE=Archy;26662144]most paper comes from responsible tree nurseries, this whole "OMG YOUR KILLING THE ENVIRONMENT BY PRINTING" thing is just more activist bullshit most of our oxygen comes from plankton anyway, we should be focusing on preserving and harnessing the ocean[/QUOTE] I heard that you could basically blacktop all the land on the planet and still have a liveable earth due to the enormous amounts of O2 made by microbial life.
[QUOTE=nVidia;26662030]So we must protect them?[/QUOTE] They could become endangered.
[QUOTE=TH89;26662200]What a waste of electricity[/QUOTE] Quick, let's make a format that must be printed to be viewed to save electricity! :science:
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;26661984]Trees aren't endangered.[/QUOTE] Depends on the variety of tree
[QUOTE=Habsburg;26662656]Depends on the variety of tree[/QUOTE] I was talking about trees in general, but this is true.
Someone make a photo of Stone Cold Steve Austin in a .WWF File format
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;26661984]Trees aren't endangered.[/QUOTE] Animals aren't endangered either :rolleyes: [editline]12th December 2010[/editline] Someone should make a plugin for adobe reader or whatever reads it, that makes it printable.
So it's the same exact thing as a .pdf, except you can't print? Wow
[quote]It's essentially identical to PDF, except for one key difference: It can't be printed.[/quote] Well thanks for removing the one thing that makes PDF useful
Let's release a file type that is intentionally limited. Surely everyone will use it.
As a counter, I will make a file type than can only be viewed when printed. I'll call it, handwriting.
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