I see. On most platforms, you should be able to get some PDF reader, open-source or otherwise. You could even use your browser. And seriously, what doc format could you look at without a “reader”?

“painless” was obviously meant with reference to the document's contents, not its representation format.

Whatever your reasons for disliking PDFs are, you can't expect an author to pander to every possible idiosyncrasy of the audience.