Re: pdf vs. html

[Max Wyss <prodok -at- PRODOK -dot- CH>]

Scott (and Diane),

It may be that we have a bit a different view of those formats. A good year
ago, I would have fully subscribed your comments about PDF in comparison to
HTML. But with the version 1.2 PDF format (used by Acroba 3), you have way
more possibilities than before.

If you have the right tools, you can insert hyperlinks as easy as for HTML.
You have way more control over your document.

And, IMHO the most important feature, with PDF you have the guarantee for
document integrity because everything is _in one file_. With HTML, you have
to maintain a multitude of files not only on development level, but also on
delivery level. With PDF you have still the multitude of files on
development level, but you deliver essentially one file per document. That
you also have the guarantee for appearance integrity is a welcome
by-product of the format.

Hope, this can help.


Max Wyss
PRODOK Engineering AG
Technical documentation and translations, Electronic Publishing
CH-8906 Bonstetten, Switzerland

Fax:  +41 1 700 20 37
e-mail:  mailto:prodok -at- prodok -dot- ch    or    100012 -dot- 44 -at- compuserve -dot- com


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_____________




>Hi Diane,
>
>A few quick thoughts.
>
>I use both paper and HTML to deliver documentation: HTML to provide online
>information with a JAVA-based product, and PDF to deliver electronic copies of
>paper documents.
>
>PDF and HTML are both good ways of delivering information, but it depends on
>how you structure the information and how you want users to access it.
>
>PDF is good if you have paper documentation that you also want to deliver
>electronically, with minimal processing.  It is very straightforward to go
>from
>Word or Frame to PDF.  PDF just takes a snapshot of each page, so it preservs
>the look and feel of the paper document, including numbering, headers/footers
>and other paper-oriented formatting.   But it's platform-independent, so it's
>easy to deliver electronically on CD-ROM or over the Web.  A big advantage is
>that users can search on the entire PDF document at once; in HTML you can only
>search on a given HTML file.  Another advantage is that users can easily print
>off the entire PDF document, with your original paper formatting intact.
>
>But PDF is still basically paper-oriented.  If you want to really deliver
>online information, and make the information very modular, with lots of
>hyperlinks to allow users to navigate, HTML is better.  You can also introduce
>multimedia into HTML documents.
>
>If you're writing a document specifially for online, skip PDF and do it right
>-- with HTML.  Lots of good HTML authoring tools are out there to lead you
>through it.
>
>But if you have paper documentation that you still need to have in
>print-quality format, but you also want to deliver electronically, PDF is a
>very efficient solution that's not hard to do and not hard for users to
>access.
>
>Scott
>