Actually, parsing text data from a pdf is more like using the rock to unscrew a screw, in that it was not meant to be done that way at all. But yeah, the pdf was designed to provide a fixed-format document that could be displayed or printed with the same output regardless of the device used.

I'm not sure (I haven't thought about it a lot) that you could come up with a format that duplicates that function and is also easier to parse or edit.