Responses to a question about using Acrobat and Lotus Notes in combination

[James Bauman <James -dot- Bauman -at- SAFETY-KLEEN -dot- COM>]

From: James Bauman on 10/17/97 03:34 PM


To:   TECHWR-L @ LISTSERV.OKSTATE.EDU
cc:
Subject:  Responses to a question about using Acrobat and Lotus Notes in
      combination

* * *  About a week ago, I sent the following message:

Our corporate office wants to distribute various manuals to branch users
all over the U.S. in an on-line format.  The preliminary plan is to create
databases on Lotus Notes that hold the manuals in a .pdf format.  Then, a
copy of the Acrobat Reader would be sent to each branch as an executable
attachment via Lotus Notes.  After the Reader is installed on their
machines and the users want to see an on-line manual, they would
double-click a Lotus Notes database icon and start viewing .pdf files.

Has anyone had experience with using Adobe Acrobat and Lotus Notes in this
way or a similar way?  I'd be very interested to hear about your
experiences.

* * *   Here are the verbatim responses that I received:

   Doesn't work well on all platforms.


   We keep our documentation, which we create, in Notes databases. However
   I have quite a bit of documentation from Lotus and Lotus Notes related
   vendors (BigSky, creators of Phone Notes for instance) which is PDF.
   Once the reader is installed it works like a charm.  I have not tried to
   create a full text search with a PDF.... I though I saw a Tech Notes
   which said you could... If that is important, I would review TechNotes.


   Fantastic idea for using Notes.  I think that is one of the things Notes
   does best:  distributing rather static information to other sites and
   folks.  We've
   used all sorts of files in that manner and have had no problem.  Acrobat
    would be a new one for us, but I don't think
   that matters.  So long as the associations in Windows are correct.


   Jim, our company uses Adobe Acrobat and Lotus Notes in exactly the way
   you describe.  We have .pdf files of all of our technical
   documents stored in a Lotus Notes database.  Acrobat Reader is available
    also so that any individual who wants or needs to can install it.
   We store each .pdf file in its own Notes document, and we have (a
   process)  that extracts all the text from the .pdf file, and stuffs it
   in a
    rich text field in the Notes document. This way you can search  the
   entire database for the word "computer", view a list of all our
   documents that contain that word, and view .pdf files at will.
   Additionally, this database is available to our customers on our web
   site
   thanks to Domino.  We use Acrobat 3.0 and the 'optimize' feature so
   people connected to our web site can download our manuals a
    page-at-a-time.


   We do something very similar. We receive publications in a PDF format
   into a mail-in database when the user opens the document,
   it launches the PDF reader and file.  The only limitations to this is
   that the FULL-TEXT index doesn't not work like they claim it does
    for PDF's.


   We tried this at our company and had very good luck with the technology
   involved.  We have change control bulletins that we
   distribute as our software is enhanced.  We use Lotus Notes for internal
    delivery within
   the company.  We set up a distribution list and sent the change bulletin
   as an attached .pdf file.  We had already had our LAN support ensure
   that the Acrobat Reader was available on the LAN for each building where
   we were sending the file.  The distribution worked well and folks had no
   problem with the technology.  We didn't do this for long however because
    of a problem with the way our Lotus Notes system is
   configured. We had a problem with users getting multiple messages if the
    message had an attachment  This was not caused by
    anything we did, but since it showed up about the same time that we
   started delivering change bulletins this way, it didn't look good.
    Since we couldn't rely on the L-Notes support group to get their act
   together, we built another solution.


   A company that I worked with has a whole application developed
   using Adobe Acrobat and Notes.  Each .pdf file was dropped into a
   Notes doc that had a series of fields that allowed for
   classifying and categorizing what was in the pdf.  The user had a
   conventional Notes view and Navigators to find the needed items based
   on the info. included on the form.  When the item was selected,
   Acrobat auto launched.  Worked out quite well.  Users even began to
   use spreadsheets and such that would auto launch just as the Acrobat.
   Make sure that the users have a machine that can support 256 colors
   as text in pdfs did not seem do redraw correctly at 16 colors and the
   screen became a black blob as the pdf was scrolled up and down.  The
   app also was a bit  slow on 486 machines but that was using and 16
   bit Notes and  Win 3.1

To those who responded, thank you very much.  At times like this, I see
confirmed again and again what a great resource this listserv is.  There's
a heck of a lot of expertise and experience out there!  Have a good weekend
everyone!

Jim Bauman
IS Technical Publications
Safety-Kleen Corp.

mailto:jbauman -at- safety-kleen -dot- com

 TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send commands
   to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
  Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/  or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html