Document portability

The two most dominant formats in the world of portable documents are currently HTML and  PDF. Each of these formats have different strengths, but together they neatly meet the majority of the need for portable documents.

HTML
HTML's strength is in its adaptability: a document in this format can be read by pretty much every device available. Because modern HTML documents tend to separate the presentation from the text, each device can choose the presentation best suited to its display capabilities. To get the best portability from HTML it should be written using as little embedded presentation markup as possible. It is also possible to provide separate presentation data in the form of CSS files.

Although the data on this site is not natively HTML, all of the content is converted to HTML before appearing in the reader's web-browser. The simple WikiText format used to edit these pages, effectively strips the user of the ability to embed presentation information into the HTML and so helps to make the best of the flexibility inherent in the format.

PDF
PDF's strength is in accurately portraying a document designed for a specific presentation, usually a printable document. PDF files contain all the information required to reproduce a document exactly as it was intended by the author.

Recommendations
For sharing printable documents, PDF is the format of choice. It is the only format that truly delivers on the promise of accurately reproducing a document on the recipient's printer.

For sharing more flexible documents, HTML represents the best available trade-off between portability and accurate presentation. Further, support for HTML and CSS is constantly improving.

Legacy Formats
Together, HTML and PDF have replaced Microsoft Word DOC format as the document interchange format of choice. For many years Mircosoft Word monopolised business word processing and it is still dominant in the market. However, compatibility problems between different word processing software (and even different versions of Word format itself) has reduced the popularity of the format.