RE: PDF vs HTML

[Dan Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 12:22 PM 3/17/00 -0800, Mike Tatro wrote:
>Thomas-
>
>Well, being the wallflower that I am, I wasn't going to say anything ;-) Oh
>well... here's my take on the situation...
>
>It seems to me that most of the problems Dan mentions are really due to not
>properly optimizing the content for onscreen presentation in a hyperlinked
>environment. The very scenario put forth that users must "read thru" so much
>text that their mind skips over sections can be solved by chunking your
>information into *VERY* small pieces so that the reader only has to digest
>about one screen worth of data. BTW, PDF is completely inappropriate for
>doing this. PDF's strength is fidelity to the original printed page, not
>modular data organization for hyperlinked presentation. PDF may support
>hyperlinking, but the overall paradigm is still serial data throughput (aka,
>a "book").
==========================================================================
And what exactly is it that prevents anyone from producing modularized PDF
with exactly the same hyperlinks as a comparable HTML doc?
>-------------------------Snip---------------

>I guess I don't feel that bad examples of good technology make strong
>arguments for abandoning the technology altogether. No doubt, online help
>has a long way to go. I guess I just see the glass as "half full."
=================================================================
The trouble is that bad examples are the norm. Anyone who has thought
seriously about hypertext knows two things:

1. It's very difficult to construct a good one.

2. There are very few examples of good ones out there, regardless of whether
the medium is XML, SGML, HTML, or PDF. In fact, most of what's out there is
shovelware.

I am presently in the process of writing a paper whose working title at the
moment is "Thoughts about on-line documentation.
     ====================
     | Nullius in Verba |
     ====================
Dan Emory, Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
Voice/Fax: 949-722-8971 E-Mail: danemory@primenet.com
10044 Adams Ave. #208, Huntington Beach, CA 92646
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