Summary: 

"Near Print and Beyond Paper" discusses the PDF as a nonliving medium that provides both a page and window to its readers. Gitelman discusses that the PDF as image and print due to its permanent nature and textual format. She goes on to describe how PDFs method of delivery resembles the delivery of the scroll, in its ability to provide all the information in its entirety. 

Gitleman describes the PDF as a nonliving document in reference to the medium's unalterable format.  The text places a lot of focus on the intentionality of the text technology. PDF's are explained as being documents that can look the same on both screen and page. She also describes PDF's as an indefinite medium because unlike word processing documents; this medium cannot be edited or altered easily. She explains that the only way these texts can be altered is with the use of image editing softwares such as PhotoShop. This is interesting because it further illustrates how the PDF serves as both image and text.

Gitleman describes that PDF's are unique in their function and authorship. PDF's are usually used by corporations to provide contracts, forms, or manuals. The text explains that PDF's such as a cellphone manual; do not recognize the individuals who wrote the material as authors, but recognize the corporation itself as being the author. 

PDF's are also significant by their ability to perform similar functions as the fax machine. The uniformity, easy accessibility, a little room for human error this medium provides allows this text technology to outperform the fax machine. The article concludes by describing the searchable text features of PDF's provided by OCR software. This is significant because it allows for the image like document to possess the search ability of a word processing document while still remaining a unchangeable text document. 

Comment: I found this article interesting. Previously, I had never viewed a PDF as being a fusion of both text and image. I feel the permanent nature of images however is declining due to the rapid progression of image editing softwares and their capabilities in image manipulation. However no matter how well these softwares advance; the PDF's image-like format will unarguably always be significantly more difficult to manipulate than word processing text documents. The authors illustration of the medium as a non-living text really illustrates how this text technology allows the characteristics of the printed word to exist in the digital mediums. 

Question: The text describes that PDF's can be searchable by OCR technologies. How does this technology change the PDF's functionality? Does this technology allow for PDF's to become similar or dissimilar to images?