re: Acrobat Link Question

[holmegm -at- attbi -dot- com]

spt_76 -at- hotmail -dot- com wrote:

>The flowchart is on one page and definitions are listed below. The
>problem is when a user clicks on the definition link and goes to the
>definition page, several definitions are listed, creating confusion
>as to which definition they are reading.

>Does anyone have a suggestion for a better way to do this? Put each
>definition on it's own page? Right now I am putting enormous
>paragraph spacing between each definition with a 'back to Flowchart'
>link under the definition, but sometimes even with outrageous
>spacing between them, you can still view the definition underneath. 


If the PDF is for online use only, there's really no reason *not* to 
put each definition on a separate page, if it makes this work better 
for your audience.  Try not thinking of the "printed page" model and 
you can sometimes use (abuse?) PDF as a low-tech presentation tool.

You could use custom page sizes for the definition pages, to make the 
"pages" the size of index cards.  This would tend to minimize the 
pages jumping around in the window as the users move back and forth.  
It would also look nicer than having one small definition on a huge 
empty 8.5x11 page.

Or you could (depending on the size involved) put the flowchart and 
list of definitions on every "page", with the active definition 
showing in a box below it.  Obviously this would be better on a fast 
network, but this way the fact that they are separate "pages" to 
Acrobat Reader would be almost transparent to the user.  The 
definition would just appear to change as they click on different 
definitions from the list.  Of course, if you do this, you might want 
to create some kind of custom Print button that just prints the 
current page, or links to a version more suitable for printing.

Just some ideas.  I'm assuming there is a reason PDF is being used 
for this purpose (it is quite good for presenting flowcharts online), 
because what you want to do with the definitions might be better done 
in another medium.  Hmm.  Assuming this is being viewed in a browser, 
put the PDF flowchart in a frame on top, with the definitions 
displaying in a bottom frame as HTML?

-- 

Greg Holmes

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