TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Nearly 4 months ago, when I went NoMail, we were arguing about PDF for
online. Is this the same argument, did it start over again?
Early in 2000 I asked TechWhirlers for their experience of PDF as an online
format, and Deb kindly published my summary of responses on the TechWhirl
website (http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/onlinepdf.html ). It got
embarrassingly long, so here's the short short version:
"For people reading online, PDF has no advantages and some substantial
disadvantages over HTML. The benefits of PDF are all to designers,
publishers, authors, and content controllers. For designers those
advantages are overstated: at this time there is no such thing as control
over the appearance of an online document."
My informal observations covered fewer people and a shorter period
(probably by several orders of magnitude) than Neilsen's, but they
suggested the same overall effect - online PDFs hinder transfer of
information.
*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com
Sponsored by Cub Lea, specialist in low-cost outsourced development
and documentation. Overload and time-sensitive jobs at exceptional
rates. Unique free gifts for all visitors to http://www.cublea.com
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.