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Subject:buttons v bookmarks: which is more user friendly From:"Rick Henkel" <frameuser -at- hotmail -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 10 Jun 2003 10:15:51 -0500
When I took over our PDF Documentation Library, I added four buttons at the
top of every page. One was a Print button because people couldn't figure out
how to print a PDF page within a browser. The other three buttons opened
some "help" files, which are simple PDF files that help them use the
library.
I created the buttons using forms in Acrobat. I put them on the first page
and then duplicated them to all the pages in the PDF file.
As our library has continued to grow, this process has become more and more
tedious. I'd like to use a batch sequence in Acrobat to add those buttons to
every page in a file, but I don't know JavaScript. So, as an alternative, I
created some pdfmark code that added bookmarks for these items, as well as
about a dozen additional items. This process would be done automatically
every time we create a PDF file. Therefore, we wouldn't have to do all the
manual labor that the buttons required.
When I showed this idea to some of my co-workers, they were afraid that
users would complain that we took something away from them. All the
information is still there (and more), but users might not be able to find
it because it's no longer a visible button at the top of every page.
Is that a valid concern? Are users more inclined to notice/use a button than
they are a bookmark?
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