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.
Subject:Re: PDF versus HTML - Not hostile From:"Jeanne A. E. DeVoto" <jaed -at- jaedworks -dot- com> To:Ed Gregory <edgregory -at- home -dot- com>, "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sun, 12 Sep 1999 22:48:06 -0700
At 10:02 AM -0700 7/11/99, Ed Gregory wrote:
>At 07:44 PM 9/10/99 -0700, Jeanne A. E. DeVoto wrote that using PDF is
>hostile to the consumer because it lets the publisher/distributor avoid
>paper costs and is "just dumping those costs onto the customer."
>
>Is online help hot because everybody wants to save money on paper, or is it
>hot because that's what most users want? (Or, for you skeptics, "are
>willing to accept?)
Sure, but when you're talking about PDF, you're not talking about online
help; you're talking about distributing a ready-to-print manual as a
computer file. It still must be printed by someone - user or manufacturer -
to be optimally useful.
(It's possible to read a PDF online, of course, but it's not much fun,
especially if the document is long or contains conceptual information that
requires concentration and careful reading. I've tried - and I'm one of
those people who finds it almost as easy to read a document that's on
screen as one that's on paper.)
This isn't an online-help versus printed-manual debate, in other words, at
least not as far as my comments are concerned.
