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Erika Yanovich reports: <<This is one of those things nobody remembers
why we do in a certain way - what is called 'for historical reasons'. A
pair of fresh eyes pointed out to me that the help files we produce can
be replaced by cheaper PDFs with the same functionality.>>
No, they can't provide similar functionality--not even close. Acrobat
is wonderful tool for a _very limited set of uses_, but PDF fails two
big tests as a useful online help tool. Wth the caveat that I'm only
slowly developing my Acrobat expertise, a few thoughts based on what
I've read and encountered firsthand:
First and most important to me, the screen display cannot be resized to
suit the reader's needs. For example, you can't resize and position the
help window next to the application so that you can see both the help
and the application simultaneously. If you do this, the help text
doesn't wrap, which means you have to engage in endless scrolling for
many help topics. The problem is exacerbated if the reader has weak
eyes and prefers to zoom in on the text; then, even less text fits in
the help window.
Second, PDF does not support context-sensitive help without going
through various convolutions. Although it's undoubtedly possible to
link from a dialog box to the appropriate bookmark in a PDF file, I'm
not aware of any easy way to generate a list of such "topic IDs", and
no automated way for programmers to import these topics into their
programming environment. Certainly, there's nothing as smooth and easy
as the automatic map-file generation offered by RoboHelp et al.
Third, PDF doesn't provide "wizards" that you can integrate with the
software via the Help engine. You can probably fake this kind of
behavior with Acrobat, but it's not inherently part of Acrobat's
behavior.
Arguably, Acrobat Reader is another problem: It can launch far more
slowly than the Windows Help engine (depending on the version), offers
fewer useful navigation aids, and if you can't be certain that your
audience has the right version of Acrobat Reader on their computer,
you'll have to include it in the installation routine for your
software--without overwriting older versions of Reader if the user
doesn't want to upgrade.
Moreover, if you use any kind of interesting layout (e.g., multiple
columns), it becomes impossible to copy and paste text from the Acrobat
file into (say) a word processor; Acrobat formats text line by line,
not paragraph by paragraph. Many users (myself included) copy key
passages from online help into our word processors so that once we find
an obscure topic, we know we can find it again--something one can't
guarantee with online help.
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