Can Acrobat replace WinHlp32.exe?

[Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- AXIONET -dot- COM>]

"Branchaud, Paul" <pbranchaud -at- UTSOFT -dot- COM> wrote:

>Another solution that has been proposed (by the developers, >not me) is to use the PDF files we will be creating for the >user guides.

I believe that there's an Acrobat Developer's Kit available from Adobe.

I checked into this possibility very briefly a couple of months ago, and
my understanding is that, if you want to call Acrobat directly from a
program, you have to pay Adobe a licensing fee. If I remember correctly,
a one time use was $100, and you could purchase a multi-use license.

>I am not keen on this idea primarily because user guides and >online help use different writing styles.

This is the conventional wisdom. However, with single-sourcing becoming
such a buzzword, I think we'll have to rethink this idea, even if it's
true.

Personally, I'm starting to question it. I suspect that people are just
more forgiving of paper manuals than on-line manuals. Since I started
writing paper manuals with the thought that, like the on-line stuff, it
was meant primarily to be scanned rather than read, I've had nothing but
very enthusiastic feedback from both customers and companies.

>Pointing to the .PDF files would be messy and not that
>helpful, IMHO.

I don't know - maybe it's time to start moving past the DOS paradigm
that everything has to be opened from a centralized window. So long as
users know to look for the help file, and how to start it, maybe there
isn't much of a problem.

--
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
(bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com)  (604) 421-7189
http://www.axionet.com/outlawcommunications (Updated 23 November, 1997)
Job Bank Team, STC Canada West Coast Chapter
http://www.stc.org/region7/cwc/www/job_bank.html

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'So each cavalier who loves honour and me,
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--"Bonnie Dundee"


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