Re: Should we skip HTML?

["Huber, Mike" <mrhuber -at- SOFTWARE -dot- ROCKWELL -dot- COM>]

I'm quite able to receive PDF. But I find large PDFs annoying when I
want a small piece of information.

For example, in order to find out what time a particular speaker is
scheduled at the STC conference, I have to download a 47 page document.
Which looks darned good printed out in full color, but I just want the
one chunk of information. On the other hand, I had access to the
information on the web several days before I had the hard copy. And if I
wanted to present a polished proposal to convince my boss to send me to
the conference, the PDF would look very good.

Ya gotta keep that user in mind. The answer depends on the question.

PDF is great for a lot of things, but there are a couple of very bad
reasons to use it. I've seen it used to shovel data, and I've seen it
used to enshrine somebody's precious layout. Both of these are tempting
to me as an information developer. Neither of these pleases me as a
user.

---
mike -dot- huber -at- software -dot- rockwell -dot- com
Home: nax -at- execpc -dot- com

>-----Original Message-----
>From:  Marilynne Smith [SMTP:marilyns -at- QUALCOMM -dot- COM]
>Sent:  Tuesday, March 10, 1998 3:56 PM
>To:    TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>Subject:       Re: Should we skip HTML?
>
>I am starting to get Word6 documents from the web as well.  I have Acrobat
>Reader installed.  My only problem with receiving PDF files is that
>sometimes people don't tell me that's what they're sending.  Before you
>send a PDF file to me, please provide a summary, let me know how large it
>is, and ask me if I want to see it.  Much of the time I'm not really so
>interested that I want to download the document.
>
>A while back, STC was putting conference information as PDF files.  There
>the "what is the common denominator" question applies.  If you want that
>information available to everyone, you had better make it readable on the
>web - in HTML.
>
>