Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
This is amusing. It seems those evil Democrats cleverly converted the stimulus bill into a PDF file in order to prevent Rush from searching through the document:
LIMBAUGH: In addition, they have reformatted the bill -- they've made it a PDF file when they posted it. Now, for those of you that don't use computers, basically what that means is that it cannot be keyword searched. A PDF file is essentially a picture of a page. And, so, you can read every page, but you cannot keyword search it. It's not a text file as legislation normally is as posted on these public websites. They don't want anybody knowing what's in this; they want it happening as fast as possible so nobody can know what's in it.
You'd think with all the viagra he takes he'd have a kid by now who could tell him what that box at the top of a PDF file that says "find" means.
Politics
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... because all those paper printouts are so easy to do a keyword search on...
Has this bozo gone to thomas.loc.gov? They've been using PDF for YEARS!!
Yeesh!
Posted by: Umlud | February 18, 2009 9:38 AM
Well, to be perfectly honest, if the PDF was produced by simply scanning each page and bundling the images into a PDF file, then it will not be possible to search for particular words. The "find" box won't work in that case.
Although it seems that a much simpler way to generate a PDF would be to use one of Adobe's plugins for Word, which will generate a PDF that can be searched. I'm pretty sure OpenOffice can generate searchable PDFs as well, but I'd have to check to be sure.
Posted by: Shawn Smith | February 18, 2009 9:41 AM
To be fair, some PDF's are not searchable. That is the case when a PDF is made from a scan, where pages are scanned into images and embedded into a PDF file. Many archives of older scientific journal articles are full of PDF files obtained this way. The copier at my work also does "scan to PDF" in this way and those documents are not searchable.
Is it possible a scanned version of the stimulus bill was posted at some point?
Posted by: CS | February 18, 2009 9:41 AM
I've run across a few PDFs that are not searchable. This is not one of them.
Posted by: nal | February 18, 2009 9:42 AM
Ummmmmm, thanks for splainin that Mr. Limbaugh.
That dude will say... anything. He don't freakin care.
Posted by: 386sx | February 18, 2009 9:42 AM
The PDF specification includes provisions for both text, which can be searched, and images, which cannot. If the person making the PDF did not have the original computer text, i.e. they received it on paper, they may have scanned it and made an image format.
Posted by: Herod the Freemason | February 18, 2009 9:43 AM
An example of a PDF document which is not scannable is the Discovery Institute's "Scientific dissent from Darwinism" list which I downloaded as of 2005. I just checked, and they make the current version available in searchable format.
Posted by: Herod the Freemason | February 18, 2009 9:46 AM
I suspect that a large section of the guy's audience thinks that PDF files should be kept as far away from kids as possible, in case they get molested.
Posted by: Philbert | February 18, 2009 9:47 AM
Thanks, Ed, for teaching something about Adobe Acrobat I didn't know, that you can find words in a .pdf document. (What, read the instructions to being with?)
As for Rush. How batshit that he claims something that he can print out on paper and read is being 'hidden'.
Methinks he is scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Posted by: Rodney | February 18, 2009 9:54 AM
This isn't the first time Rush has had computer troubles. The guys a Mac user and bitched about something about mail not working correctly. Rumor has it that Apple had someone sent out to shut him up ... er... fix the issue.
Posted by: yoshi | February 18, 2009 10:05 AM
Well, he could just READ the damn thing.
Posted by: Mrs. Grackle | February 18, 2009 10:11 AM
Not to defend Limbaugh, but I personally would be much happier if they were text files and grep(1)able. Granted, there are ways of converting a pdf to a text file, so it's not an impossible to use my friend grep(1).
Posted by: foole | February 18, 2009 10:21 AM
@Mrs. Grackle
That would require that he be able to actually read, something he has shown no evidence of so far.
Posted by: Nick | February 18, 2009 10:23 AM
And again I'm amazed anyone takes this toolbag seriously.
Posted by: Josh | February 18, 2009 10:30 AM
When was the last time this bozo used Acrobat Reader; 1997?
Posted by: Julian | February 18, 2009 10:41 AM
friend foole:
grep? I suspect that use of grep, awk, vi and sed will soon be outlawed as will all other cli tools. You must use the (approved) gui or you will be suspected of high treason by the unwashed masses.
Posted by: MikeMa | February 18, 2009 10:49 AM
Look at the bright side of all this - at least now the jackass can't quote mine, because that would requires actual WORK.
Posted by: TheEngima32 | February 18, 2009 10:50 AM
This really doesn't surprise me. What would surprise me is if even 10% of his listeners even own a computer.
Posted by: llDayo | February 18, 2009 11:04 AM
You know what also works for finding words in pdf's? The same effing procedure in every word processor I’ve ever used, Edit->Find, or Ctrl-F (Command-F for mac).
Posted by: phiend | February 18, 2009 11:07 AM
Yoshi, I use a Mac as my personal computer, and Apple has gone a long way to make it easy to search PDFs. In the Preview program, the search field is really big, in the upper right corner of the PDF frame, with a magnifying class next to it, labeled "Search". Unless Rush is using an extremely old version of Mac OS (pre OS-X), there's no excuse for not being able to search.
I give my grandparents and elderly neighbors a pass on this, but then, they aren't know-it-all jerks on national radio.
Posted by: Tenax | February 18, 2009 11:09 AM
The particular PDF's on change.gov's website ARE text unsearchable. Also, they have included an ASCII (text) version of the bill.
Posted by: jake | February 18, 2009 11:10 AM
Needs more viagra.
Posted by: Les Lane | February 18, 2009 11:17 AM
Why would you go to change.gov? That was the website of the transition team. It even says on its first page that you should go to whitehouse.gov now. The PDF's at whitehouse.gov are searchable.
Posted by: Dave | February 18, 2009 11:19 AM
Doh, I meant to type recovery.gov. But you are still technically correct, because from there you are simply redirected to the whitehouse.gov domain. Thanks Dave.
Posted by: jake | February 18, 2009 11:34 AM
MikeMa,
For good reason. And if you add in the mother of all applications (yes, emacs) you can do anything. Anything. I believe even documents that are not web accessible are keyword searchable with that selection of tools
Posted by: heddle | February 18, 2009 11:40 AM
As a computer moron, I didn't know that pdfs were searchable, but Rush's point is nonsense anyway.
Posted by: CJColucci | February 18, 2009 12:09 PM
To everybody saying that you can't search some PDFs, you obviously didn't bother to read the link that Ed provides, because the source site, Media Matters, DID a key word search on the very document in question.
Posted by: MZ | February 18, 2009 12:20 PM
I haven't done this in a while but my recollection is that there exists software out there which will scan in a document and convert the text therein to text, even preserving the original fonts.
Posted by: SLC | February 18, 2009 12:36 PM
SLC: The term for that is "OCR" (Optical Character Recognition) and while it sometimes works, it can be oddly inaccurate in unpredictable ways.
Posted by: Michael Ralston | February 18, 2009 12:46 PM
Like anyone in Rush's audience has ever checked his statements against a primary source anyway.
Posted by: H.H. | February 18, 2009 12:52 PM
you're a retard, some pdf's can't be searched.
Posted by: zombie_bot | February 18, 2009 1:07 PM
I've noticed PDF files come up in Google for quite some time now. It even allows you to view them as HTML. I doubt this particular PDF is in the Google database already, though.
http://www.google.com/help/faq_filetypes.html
Posted by: pough | February 18, 2009 1:13 PM
Wow. The white house website is one of the most annoying websites I've ever had the displeasure to peruse. Clicking links don't take you places until you've been warned that by clicking the link to go somewhere, you've clicked a link and will be going somewhere, so make sure you click another link to go somewhere. It's like Vista's UAC. Apparently made by retards for retards.
Posted by: pough | February 18, 2009 1:20 PM
A pdf that is not searchable is almost certainly one that has been scanned from a paper copy. It's highly unlikely that a born-digital document would not be searchable.
Don't big-money talk show hosts have people? Shouldn't there be someone on staff who sees the talking points ahead of time and is savvy enough to warn their boss, wait, this isn't how e-docs work?
Posted by: Scott Hanley | February 18, 2009 1:23 PM
Is it possible a scanned version of the stimulus bill was posted at some point?
No.
Posted by: QrazyQat | February 18, 2009 1:27 PM
All PDFs are seachable, if you have the right software and use the OCR. Now depending on the quality of the origional scan the OCR may not do that great a job, but it is still better then paper. Of course there is always the option of printing the document and rescanning it into a new pdf file using a hi rez scanner and the OCR software to create a seachable PDF.
But that solution required thought...something Rush isn't really known for
Posted by: gingerbeard | February 18, 2009 1:29 PM
It's a standard button on the toolbar. Doesn't get much easier than that.
pdf2txt source | grep pattern
works pretty well for me.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | February 18, 2009 1:30 PM
@pough, all government websites are set up to give that warning.
Posted by: BB | February 18, 2009 1:38 PM
Scott Hanley:
"Don't big-money talk show hosts have people? Shouldn't there be someone on staff who sees the talking points ahead of time and is savvy enough to warn their boss, wait, this isn't how e-docs work?"
On the odd chance that Rushbo is as much of an asshole to his staff as he is to most other folks do you think that he might not get that sort of warning from someone who thinks he's a dick, aside from his idiotology?
Posted by: democommie | February 18, 2009 2:08 PM
I guess Rush just doesn't know what those little binoculars with the word "Search" next to them on the tool bar symbolize.
Older documents might be nonsearchable because they were created via scanning hard copies, but anything the government is cranking out now is being done in a word processing program (usually Word) and then converted to other formats electronically.
Posted by: Nan | February 18, 2009 2:14 PM
democommie:
When I listened to Sean Hannity (in another lifetime, it seems), he'd often toss at his call screener something like "You're a liberal, what do you think about [whatever Sean was discussing]? Yeah, I'd really say something to make the person who signs my paycheck look like the idiot he is...
Posted by: R. Sherman | February 18, 2009 2:15 PM
Seeing the great Rush Limbaugh being stymied by the lowly PDF format brings to mind another scourge of mankind being brought low:
http://doctorwho.neoseeker.com/wiki/Image:Punch_daleks.gif
Posted by: tacitus | February 18, 2009 3:07 PM
@tacitus - LOL! Of course, the geek in me has to point out that the Daleks eventually acquired the ability to go up stairs, whereas Rush Limbaugh will never, ever acquire the ability to think.
Posted by: Der Bruno Stroszek | February 18, 2009 3:38 PM
They should load the stimulus bill onto a big truck. That'll help Rush.
Posted by: Paholaisen Asianajaja | February 18, 2009 3:43 PM
He doesn't merit attention or coverage from anybody, being a self-appointed standard-bearer for a discredited lunatic fringe. His spittle-flecked minions are unreachable with anything like logic or reason, and for the rest of us he is irrelevant. Attention paid just legitimizes him.
Posted by: wunelle | February 18, 2009 4:06 PM
The PDF in question is searchable enough. Rush Limbaugh is so retarded that even people outside the US listen to his broadcasts out of morbid curiousity. I'm South African and it's... well it's like craning your neck to see an car accident, you're always sorry you did but you just couldn't help yourself.
Posted by: Joe | February 18, 2009 4:37 PM
Now, that should have been your "Dumbass Quote of the Week." I see no reason to be fair with Rush Limbaugh just because some scanners aren't using OCR, he wouldn't cut anyone else any slack believing as he does in personal responsibility. It's Rush's responsibility not to be a dumbass when it comes to anything.
Posted by: JED | February 18, 2009 4:42 PM
You know, here's the thing -- Limbaugh is a hateful bastard and a responsibility-dodging scumbag, and he may be a pedophile based on the Dominican Republic Viagra incident, but I don't think he's computer-illiterate. I think in fact he's just flat out lying here; he knows what PDFs are, but he figures his constituency doesn't.
Posted by: Brian X | February 18, 2009 5:15 PM
This is hilarious! Regarding the dust up over the PDF, I think the real reason this gas bag was so mad is because you cannot ALTER/EDIT a PDF. I'm sure if he could, he'd have one of his lemmings re-write the Stimulus and send it to his loyal following.
Did anyone hear him today?? He tried to do the math on the new Mortgage Plan. I think Limbaugh is suffering from drug poisening! First he set out to prove the $75 Billion plan was too big; he told his staff to mulitply the 9 million people affected by the plan by $300,000. (His estimate to "pay-off" all the bad mortgages-which by the way is not what the plan calls for.) Anyway he goes nuts for a couple of minutes waiting for his anwswer thinking the number would be less than 75 billion therefore proving that Obama's plan was too wastefull. When he finds out the total would be 2.7 Trillion he goes to a commercial. When he comes back he tries a different mathematical equation to prove the plan is too expensive: He asks the question: "Why doesn't Obama just give every person, all 9 million people $1 million dollars?!" It took him a good minute of air time to realize that 9 million times $1 million dollars is more than $9 million dollars!!! I swear this ass wipe must be on too many meds!
Posted by: Lenric | February 18, 2009 5:42 PM
It can be done that way. One of my university lecturers would have his notes in PDF form, but distorted the words so that it was not selectable, searchable and barely readible. Though I doubt in this case the dems did the same thing.
Posted by: Kel | February 18, 2009 6:15 PM
"That is the case when a PDF is made from a scan, where pages are scanned into images and embedded into a PDF file."
if you have full Acrobat (not the reader) there is a menu option under "Documents" which is "Scan to PDF" and just below that is "OCR Text Recognition", guess what that means?
What was that you said?
2 primary ways to get searchable text PDF file.
1. Scan then use "OCR Text Reconition" option
2. produce document as a word "doc" then save as pdf (fully searchable) if you have full Acrobat.
I thought everyone using a computer knew this, I guess not!
Posted by: richCares | February 18, 2009 6:26 PM
"you cannot ALTER/EDIT a PDF"
true for computer illiterates, with full Acrobat you can do minor editing. Under “Tools” see “Advanced Editing” then “Touchup Text Tools”, can do quite a bit there. Then also available is ”Foxit PDF Editor”, not expensive and can edit entire pdf. I think the term to describe knowing this is called being computer literate.
Posted by: vma224 | February 18, 2009 6:40 PM
One of my mother's greatest pieces of advice to me was that the first step to learning was always knowing that you didn't know the answer, and you would have to ask someone else. When I was younger, I thought it was kind of a meaningless, obvious statement. Only later did I learn to appreciate it.
One of the things that has always struck me about idiots is that they haven't learned this advice. It isn't just that they don't know something, THEY REFUSE TO RECOGNIZE THEIR OWN IGNORANCE!
If I was using a piece of software I didn't know well, and I wanted to search the resulting document and didn't know how, I would ask someone. Maybe a real person, maybe the help files, something.
Not Limbaugh. If he doesn't know how to search a PDF, the PDF is unsearchable. It's just like all the creationists who presume that if THEY don't understand something, nobody does.
It is the single most annoying problem with idiots like Limbaugh. Limbaugh himself does it over and over again. Listen to him blithering about global warming. It's one long string of him not understanding some fact, so scientists must be stupid to believe it!
Posted by: Michael Suttkus, II | February 18, 2009 6:56 PM
For the first time ever, I agree with that fucking idiot Limbaugh - there is no better way to prevent me from reading something than by converting it to .PDF format - those despicable files inevitably crash my browser or freeze the machine up entirely - I abhor them.
Posted by: peter | February 18, 2009 7:43 PM
Peter - if you are having problems with PDF files, than that's a problem with your browser or computer assuming you have the latest operating systems and Adobe Reader, it's not a problem with PDF files. I run multiple both Windows and the Mac OS on my computer, use several browsers, and have zero problems with PDF files.
PDF files have long been the business standard for sharing files where the sender wants to guarantee that what they send displays and prints as intended even if the sendee uses a different operating system or applications.
Posted by: Michael Heath | February 18, 2009 8:00 PM
Shhh . . . Nobody tell Rush about the OCR function in Acrobat Standard!
Posted by: John the Skeptic | February 18, 2009 9:20 PM
"I agree with that fucking idiot Limbaugh"
all the mfrs I deal with send their data in pdf format, never had a hangup, I can search a 600 page catalog in 14 seconds. I use MS Word to generate pdf files for my 900 page catalog and of the 12,000 copes I have sent out no hang ups. you have a system problem not a pdf problem. You should, as someone suggested, ask for help on your problem rather than make a false claim.
Posted by: vma224 | February 18, 2009 10:38 PM
Hey Peter, don't despair. Adobe's reader is horrible, so uninstall it and install one of the many superior .pdf readers out there. Foxit is very popular. You'll be very glad you did.
The Evince reader on my Linux machine also had no problem at all searching the bill.
There are definitely several unsearchable versions of the bill floating around on the net. Somehow I doubt that Limbaugh knows what the letters OCR stand for.
Posted by: george.w | February 18, 2009 10:47 PM
"You know, here's the thing -- Limbaugh is a hateful bastard and a responsibility-dodging scumbag, and he may be a pedophile based on the Dominican Republic Viagra incident, but I don't think he's computer-illiterate. I think in fact he's just flat out lying here; he knows what PDFs are, but he figures his constituency doesn't. "
count me 100% in agreement, while driving with my Rush fan sales mgr** I had to listen, his views seemed to shift to what his HS drop-out, black hating, Bigot audience were leaning towards.
**no more, they fired him, I smiled!
Posted by: richCares | February 18, 2009 10:51 PM
I'm going to have to agree that while PDF is a fine document format, Acrobat Reader is the tool of the devil. There's no reason for a read-only document viewer (designed for a single document format, no less!) to have an installed size on disk that's comparable to a Windows XP base install.
That being said, I haven't found an alternative that doesn't gag on at least some PDFs or occasionally spin of zombie threads that guzzle any free CPU cycles for no obvious reason.
Posted by: Troublesome Frog | February 19, 2009 12:58 AM
Foxit is the best, lightweight free PDF viewer (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php ).
If you want to edit PDF's (as in add text and graphics), then the free program PDF-Xchange Viewer (http://www.docu-track.com/home/prod_user/PDF-XChange_Tools/pdfx_viewer ) is what you want.
I make extremely large maps all the time and use the latter daily.
Posted by: jake | February 19, 2009 12:18 PM
"I agree with that fucking idiot Limbaugh"
I have to agree with the other commenters, the problem isn't with pdfs, it must be with your computer. The idea that Adobe Reader or Acrobat may have bugs is preposterous. And even if they did have bugs, that's not a problem with pdf format itself. Don't let the atheists around here fool you, the pdf format was not made by man, Moses brought it down the mountain.
Also, I have an anecdote about the time my sister opened a PDF successfully. It's a great story, maybe I'll share it someday.
Posted by: Citizen Z | February 19, 2009 7:18 PM
"The idea that Adobe Reader or Acrobat may have bugs is preposterous."
no one suggeste Acrobat is perfect, they are just saying Rush is an asshole, regardless of your opinion on Acrobat there is the "Find" prompt and "Apple F" making Rush's comments stupid. LIke many here, I use Foxit, give it a try.
Posted by: richCares | February 20, 2009 8:03 AM
My last comment was overly harsh, I apologize. I will say that the fact that when there's a third party basic viewer for a format that works better than the basic viewer made by the company that invented the damn format, I think that says something.
Posted by: Citizen Z | February 20, 2009 8:17 PM
You know, it's always amusing to watch the "enlightened" among us flunk Critical Thinking when Limbaugh's name comes up.
Direct your sieges against the man's points, not the man himself. The way you all are carrying on, people will get the impression that you CAN'T take down his position and so trying to take him down personally is all you're left with.
Posted by: Daniel Kirk | February 21, 2009 11:54 AM
Daniel Kirk - you did read the posts above right?
a) Rush can't find a searchable PDF document on the web, others found a copy without trouble on the Whitehouse's own website.
b) Rush can't figure out the search functions in Adobe, when they are perfectly clear to anyone with half a brain.
c) Rush never tried converting the document using another package (not even one that can convert scanned images to text using OCR).
d) Rush never asked someone more familiar with the program for help, read the copious help files or even contacted the programs's makers on their website, or (gasp) using the telephone.
e) Rush couldn't even manage to fall back on that standard practice with Bills, he never even read the document (yep just like humans have been doing for quite some time).
Instead Rush whined that it was "all just too hard. Boo hoo hoo" without even taking the basic steps to solve the problem. This kind of behaviour is irritating, but understandable in an six-year old, but for a man of Rush's advanced years to behave this way ... well you'd think he'd have grown up a little. -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | February 21, 2009 12:35 PM
If you want to fully edit a PDF, you need to open it in Ghostview, which lays open the embedded PostScript code, and you need to know the PostScript language, which is not simple.
PDF *is* pretty much a write-only format except for those who can handle the above procedure.
I have mixed feelings about Rush Limbaugh, but it is a cheap shot to call him an idiot just for not knowing how to handle PDFs; after all, Rush has quite an extensive (and good) web site of his own and it doesn't use or need PDFs.
Posted by: John David Galt | February 26, 2009 4:44 PM
umm...you think RUSH created (and maintains) his own website??
..oh my.
I am hardly a tech expert by any stretch of the imagination, but even *I* know how to search a pdf, btw.
Posted by: shads | February 26, 2009 5:29 PM