Re[2]: Should we skip HTML?

["Walker, Arlen P" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM>]

      If you imagine that your product will be used by a wide range of
      people then PDF is certainly not the way to go.  The days of PDF have
      come and quickly gone.  I don't know anyone who has acrobat on their
      machines anymore,

I know hundreds. So what's your point? That *you* don't use Acrobat so no
one does?

      If you want to make is as difficult as possible for your users to
      get help...then by all means go with PDF.

I find Acrobat to be faster and easier than a web browser for local file
access. It also consumes far less memory than the browsers I keep around.
In addition, it's far more stable. Give me a choice for viewing a local doc
and I'll take PDF every time.

The only time I miss the control a browser gives me over the page is when I
encounter a bad design. And I encounter bad design far more often in HTML
than in PDF. I don't want to spend my time tweaking your design to make it
usable. I want to read it and be done with it.

PDF excels at keeping things simple, at presenting the information cleanly
and clearly. HTML, using any realistic number of illustrations, will result
in many small files, which given the cluster sizes on most people's hard
drives today, will waste a ton of disc space. (Not to mention that a user
seems far more likely, in my experience, to blow away or otherwise mangle
one or more small files than a single big one.)

To my mind, HTML over the net is useful; local HTML files mean a lazy
designer.


Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
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