RE: on-line help

[Mike Tatro <tatro@xxxxxxx>]

Let me just add a few thoughts.

I primarily produce online help. I never use FM to do that. I don't single
source. I bite the bullet and use HTML as a source file format. It is the
BEST source file format for online help. With a tool like RoboHELP, you can
produce many different flavors of online help. The source files are
completely human-readable, so if something goes awry I can fix it (not so
with RTF). Also, the files are reasonably light. 

You're headed the right direction. Stay the course.

Warmest Regards,
Michael L. Tatro
Documentation Manager/Webmaster
VSI, an Esker company (www.vsi.com)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Michanek [mailto:thomas.michanek@telia.com]
> Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 8:02 AM
> To: Free Framers
> Cc: wil.bron@philips.com
> Subject: Re: on-line help
> 
> 
> *** The original message appeared on the FrameUsers mailing list.
> *** This reply is copied only to the framers@omsys.com mailing list.
> 
> From: <wil.bron@philips.com>
> > We have a rather extended user manual containing over 20
> > chapters/1200 pages and many imported graphics. A few years
> > ago we decided to make html from the FrameMaker source files.
> > We use these html as on-line help.
> > Do you think html is a good choice for making on-line help?
> > I don't particularly like the layout and pdf
> > would probably have a much better look.
> > But what about memory usage of large pdf files?
> > Are there other pro and cons?
> 
> I have actually taken a serious look at PDF as online help format,
> but found it to be not such a good choice.
> 
> The on-screen appearance of text in small point sizes is not as
> simple and good as HTML. With text smoothing turned off, text is
> more jaggy compared to a web browser, and with text smoothing
> turned on, text becomes fuzzy and gray. This is subjective, but
> in general body text is rendered better in web browsers.
> 
> Things like navigation and links will work equally well, and
> may be easier to create from FrameMaker hyperlinks compared to
> HTML conversions. Bookmarks in PDF are nice and automatic.
> 
> PDF documents have a fixed page size/ratio and layout, which
> is normally a good idea, and you know the layout already in FM.
> Anything you design in FM will look exactly the same in PDF.
> With HTML, final layout may not be what you'd expect, and some
> things cannot be converted easily (multiple columns, image maps).
> 
> BUT, online help is generally tied to the application, i.e. the
> help is context-sensitive and opens up at the correct place in
> the help file. This is much more difficult to achieve with PDF,
> since the free Acrobat Reader cannot be told to open a PDF file
> at a specific location. (The API and license doesn't allow it.)
> 
> On the other hand, by using Acrobat Catalogue, you can easily
> create a search index which can be used in the Acrobat Reader.
> A free text search must be implemented separately for HTML.
> 
> Acrobat Reader can be slower than a web browser when it comes
> to opening documents, switching between documents, etc.
> And, people aren't used to the Acrobat Reader in the same way
> as a web browser, especially not for on-screen hypertext and
> searching.
> 
> In short, PDFs *can* be used for on-line help, but HTML is
> in many cases a better choice. PDF is intended as a format for
> document distribution, not as an interactive hypertext format.
> If your FM documents contain longer texts that aren't intended
> as short, context-sensitive help for interactive use, but
> instead as separate reading that users may want to print out
> instead of reading on-screen, then PDF is an alternative.
> 
> 
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Thomas Michanek, FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF expert
> mailto:Thomas.Michanek@telia.com   (Sweden)
> http://w1.133.telia.com/~u13304072/framers
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