TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Creating PDFs is easy, if you have what used to be called PDF Writer (and I
believe is now simply included with Acrobat 4.0+) Creating a PDF is as
simple as printing a document. Select <print> from the file menu, select PDF
Writer as the printer, select the folder that you want the PDF created in,
click <ok>, and it's done. There are some options that you can set, but
basically, it's a three click operation. If you have the Acrobat product,
you can even tweak the PDFs after they're created.
As far as putting them on the Internet, simply set a link in the HTML, with
the PDF as the ref. There are some issues involved in optimizing for
Internet access, especially if the files are large (many graphics, dozens of
pages) You'll need to find out of your ISP (or server software) supports
byte-serving, which allows the browser plug-in to download only the page of
the PDF that is currently being viewed.
As a long-time user of Corel's Draw, I'd be happy to provide you with
information about using the product. I used to use it quite a bit in my
former life as a graphic artist/ technical illustrator. The learning curve
isn't too steep, as much of the interface is intuitive. But it would be
better to continue this discussion off-list.