re: Designing docs for PDF

["Christensen, Kent" <lkchris -at- sandia -dot- gov>]

re: I'd like to hear from people who have strong opinions about how to
design documents so they look good in PDF (when viewed primarily on screen).

A couple posts prior to this one in today's digest, the poster (Tom M.)
wrote "... you're going to get a range of opinions; that's the beauty of
this list."

My take on this subject is ... don't do it.

The purpose of pdf is chiefly, IMHO, to transmit documents via the Web that
the user will ultimately print.  PDF is not a good format for screen
presentation.  For that, use HTML.  Whatever you do, however, you'll find
the tips you require for designing pages to be "viewed primarily on screen"
under the heading "designing Web pages."  A good list of tips can be found
at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ and you might find particularly
interesting http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010610.html which is titled
"Avoid PDF for On-screen Reading," and which contains the admonition
"Forcing users to browse PDF files makes usability approximately 300% worse
compared to HTML pages."

And, if you indeed are trying to design pages to be "viewed primarily on
screen" try to configure Acrobat to present infinitely long pages, use no
page breaks, no page numbering, no page headers, etc.  The Web has changed
users' expectations as regards screen viewing and you should just go with
the flow and give users what they expect ... or expect complaints.

PDF does have the advantage, of course, of containing the graphics, while
with HTML the graphics must be separate files.  This is not a problem, of
course, unless you're shipping CDs or floppy disks.

PDF seems to me not so user friendly from an accessibility standpoint since
the ability for the user to configure Acrobat Reader to increase your font
size isn't there as conveniently as it is for the HTML/browser method.  Are
there readers for the blind for pdf pages?  Can you insert "alt" text in a
pdf document that a reader can use to speak a description of your graphics?


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