It is machine readable, just not readily machine malleable.
I worked on a project where we were digitizing and cataloging various records. It was less challenging to do this with papers from the British colonial administration from the late 1700s, than to decipher certain 1980s documents written with a defunct word processor. PDF is a compromise that helps address that issue.
I would not recommend maintaining your general ledger in a PDF. But an annual report that may be referenced for decades is a great example of why a PDF is a useful format.
I worked on a project where we were digitizing and cataloging various records. It was less challenging to do this with papers from the British colonial administration from the late 1700s, than to decipher certain 1980s documents written with a defunct word processor. PDF is a compromise that helps address that issue.
I would not recommend maintaining your general ledger in a PDF. But an annual report that may be referenced for decades is a great example of why a PDF is a useful format.