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Subject:Re: Survey: how do you use PDFs From:Sandy Harris <sandy -at- storm -dot- ca> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 09 May 2001 12:38:56 -0400
Tom Murrell wrote:
>
> Regarding PDFs. I don't like 'em.
I agree, though I'd state it more strongly. I detest attempts to pretend PDF
is a usable online documentation format. It is a print format which can, at
a pinch, be read online.
> They're the most difficult things online to read online. Invariably they
> arrive fuzzy and poorly sized for the screen. (You can't size things for
> every screen with PDF, I don't believe.)
I think the error is sizing things at all, rather than leaving to the user
and the browser to make it fit an available window.
> They're hard to navigate, and everything everybody else says about them
> is true, too.
Slow to load, twice as large as equivalent HTML file, harder to manage in
a revision control system, ...
> I don't like 'em. Don't like 'em at all.
Me neither.
> That said, if I have to have the information and the only way to get it is a
> PDF, I'll print it out. They usually exist because the developing organization
> finds shipping PDFs cheaper than shipping the printed counterpart. They shove
> the printing cost onto their audiences. In fact, now that I think about it,
> everything about a PDF document seems to be for the convenience of the
> developer/developing organization not the convenience of the user.
>
> But of course, that's just MY humble opinion.
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