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Subject:Re: HTML or PDF? From:Al Geist <al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 28 Feb 2005 11:54:56 -0700
When I first joined my present employer, virtually everything was
converted to PDFs prior to being placed on the corporate web site. This
was done more because of the limited experience they had developing web
sites and because, for the marketing types, it was much easier to create
a PDF out of a PageMaker or Word file than try to figure out HTML.
(This supports the concept that PDFs are cheaper 'cause it took less
time to make.) Even our 60+ page catalogs were put on the web site as
PDF files, albeit broken down into individual sections. Of course, this
made navigation a nightmare. First you had to download the Table of
Contents into the Acrobat Reader, then download the section you needed.
It was archaic, cumbersome and hardly used by our vendors or customers.
Online HELP was just not part of the mixture. Marketing types liked
PDFs because it was easier for them (the Marketing types) to create.
All it took for me to change the way we did things (and I am part of the
Marketing Department) was to convert our largest catalog (68+ pages) to
HTML and show it to the corporate president and our top outside sales
staff. The ease of use and speed of presentation won the day. (would
you rather download a 2.9M PDF or click a hyperlink that immediately
took you to the information you needed?)
We still produce printed versions of our catalogs for annual mail outs
and trade shows, but that's changing too as I have converted our web
site to an autorun CD that contains all our marketing materials, all of
our catalogs (in searchable HTML), etc. The good news is that our
newest products now include online HELP. They're crude and they're done
by engineers who have no clue about the concept of hyperlinks, but none
of this would have happened until I showed the difference between PDF
and HTML from an end users point of view. Prior to my efforts with the
catalogs, the goal was to do exactly what your Marketing individuals
want to do...create HELP applications in PDF form.
Just my two cents.....
Al
Erika wrote:
I feel reluctant because I haven't seen this approach widely used for
applications in general (apart from Acrobat of course) and NMS
applications in particular. The relevant R&D and Marketing people feel
OK about it, but I am still reluctant.
--
Al Geist, Geist Associates
From Concept to Completion
Technical Writing, Online Help Applications, Marketing Collateral, Web
Design, Award Winning Video, Professional Photography
Office: 505-294-8855
Cell: 505-400-4128
E-mail: al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com <mailto:al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com>
URL: www.geistassociates.com
"When the situation is absolutely hopeless, you have nothing to worry
about."
Compliments of The Monkey Wrench Gang
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