this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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Pdfs are not always made on computers. In most office environments you are going to run into scanned documents. Scanners like to do funny things and people dont always put all the pages in the correct orientation.
I know it's not very relevant, but that reminds me of a talk held during a CCC (Chaos Computer Club) convention.
It's in German, but I'll try to summarize it: Someone noticed the numbers on a scanned page didn't match the original, so they hired an expert to find out what happened. Turns out that the printer they were using had a feature that would detect symbols that looked the same and basically copypasted ome cutout of the symbol onto the other to save space on the final PDF. Due to the print/copy quality, this substitution sometimes malfunctioned, substituting similar looking symbols, such as 8 and 0.
I see. I didn't think I ever heard about that. I'm only familiar with them as in a digital version of paperwork, not a digital copy of a document.
I understand exactly how that happens then.