All Things Caplan

Bryan: I feel as if the pdf file nature of your papers makes them relatively difficult to make use of compared to if they were in plain text, and infinitely less usable than your nicely hyperlinked-up html (ie, the museum of communism). It seems like including a plain-text version of one's articles would be a rather simple matter, and would make them spider-able to google, easier to search for the interested reader, etc. ... and yet, i rarely encounter an easy-to-use version of an academic's research. so, like a good truth-seeker, I ask: what am I missing here?
(As I glance over your papers again, maybe it's the graphs and charts??)

*alcibiades:

Google has no problem spidering PDF files (and files in many other common formats). If you are still having problems with PDF, it may be your own computer equipment--recent PCs with recent browsers and free Acrobat Reader handle PDF very easily. Over 85% of readers will have broadband.

PDF not only preserves graphs and charts, but also makes good printing possible on a very wide range of printers. A web author posting PDFs gets many fewer complaints about "it didn't print right", in my (considerable) experience.