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Subject:Re: "Printer-friendly" web pages From:eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 1 Dec 2004 09:20:28 -0500
tstorer -at- free -dot- fr wrote on 12/01/2004 06:21:02 AM:
> The company I work for has several thousand pages of documentation,
> currently available as PDF guides installed with the
> product, plus online help systems. We're thinking of placing all our doc
on the
> web at some point in the future as HTML. One advantage of PDF is that
> it's easily printable, whereas HTML is not practical in that regard.
Does no one see the obvious? Use each format where it is best suited. If
you are currently producing PDF, continue to produce PDF.
Just add HTML output to your workflow and give links to the PDFs for those
that want to print hard copy. With a little bit of planning and foresight,
the HTML and PDF can even be complementary and not simple re-formatted
regurgitations of the same content and structure.
It's dead simple to manage and produce multiple outputs and it serves your
audience/users well. As you currently produce PDF, keep your current
workflow and determine how best to extract/create the HTML content from
your current workflow. The initial attempts may result in less than
optimal HTML, but as the system evolves, both the PDF and HTML output will
evolve to their optimal forms.
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