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Re: Survey: how do you use PDFs

Subject: Re: Survey: how do you use PDFs
From: Scott Turner <sturner -at- airmail -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 13:04:55 -0500

Sandy said:
Not to restart a Holy War, but I want things like page size, font choice, etc.
to be under the control of the user, the application or the stylesheet. I think
having the writer control those, beyond setting reasonable defaults, is a serious
error.

[snip]

If you distribute printed documentation, and the subject of that
documentation changes, ...

PDFs can be conveniently downloaded to replace existing PDF documentation.
In the case of software, the PDF can be updated automatically ...

Yes, PDF is a wonderful means of delivering print documentation online,
anything from a printable form that you want signed and FAXed or sent
back by snail mail to a full product documentation suite.

I am not saying PDF is perfect, or the end-all of electronic documentation.
I just suggest that those who pigeon-hole it as strictly a print-only medium
> are looking at PDF with blinders on.


If your format needs to remain fixed because of image branding then PDF is a must. If you want to single source, a holy grail that I believe is largely unattainable using most authoring tools today, you should seriously consider using XML and XSL. That has the possibility of allowing single sourced documents with multiple output formats. It's just that there is no overall support for this format yet.

Scott

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References:
RE: Survey: how do you use PDFs: From: Brierley, Sean
Re: Survey: how do you use PDFs: From: Sandy Harris

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