PDF vs Help?

Subject: PDF vs Help?
From: Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
To: techwr-l List <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, WilliamFLawrence -at- eaton -dot- com
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:55:14 -0500

William Lawrence reports: <<Out of expediency, I recently connected a
PDF version of a manual to an application as context-sensitive help.
My normal approach had been to repurpose XML into both PDF and help,
but in this instance I was using InDesign and had not made the
transition from native InDesign format to XML. Using PDF files as
context-sensitive help is fairly trivial, one just embeds PDF
destinations throughout the file and references these just as one
would an HTML anchor in the link. (OK, the syntax is a little more
complex than that, but that's basically it.)>>

Cool! Thanks for sharing!

<<Well, after fielding this I find that I like this approach better.
It's not simply content repurposed into another format, it's the
content coupled with a thoughtfully constructed layout.>>

Another data point from the field: I designed the PDF version of my
book (see below my sig) specifically for ease or reading on the
screen. As a result, readers have reported that they're quite pleased
with the onscreen version -- enough so that they actually read it.
(Though some are still holding out for the printed version. <g>)

<<Moreover, I can control the PDF display to just about the same
degree as I can control help windows.>>

I would say "to a much greater degree". One of the advantages of a
well-designed help system is that you can resize the windows to fit
in the available space. I'm not aware of this being possible with PDF
without requiring unacceptable amounts of scrolling (or shrinking the
type into illegibility), but would be pleased to learn how to do it
if such a possibility exists.

<<Like a good help system, this has full-text search, a cascading
table of contents, and a hyperlinked index. Unlike help, the
customer can easily print whatever part of the manual is desired
instead of merely the content of the visible topic.>>

I suspect there's a way to select help topics more efficiently than
you're suggesting (e.g., print the entire help system to PDF <g>),
but I'm no longer sufficiently up on Help technology to say how. But
on the other hand, the advantage of the Help system is that it's
often easier to copy out the text, paste it into Word, and reformat
it as desired. Extracting text from PDF files has always been fairly
awkward -- though I haven't tried this recently with the latest
version of Adobe Reader, it was prohibitively difficult in older
versions.

<<So, have I just sent shudders of doom through all of the HATT
companies?>>

Not hardly. <g> Let's not forget that back in the golden days of
WinHelp, it wasn't hard to author help files in Word using nothing
more than the built-in footnote feature combined with a few macros to
automate the process. And you can still create an efficient and
effective help system using nothing more complex than a text editor
and a basic knowledge of HTML. The fact that RoboHelp made this so
easy that nobody bothered to write their own macros is why the HAT
companies won't be worried: their strength is that they make the
process sufficiently easy that there's no incentive to reinvent the
wheel yourself.


----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
--------------------------------------------------
***Now available*** _Effective onscreen editing_
(http://www.geoff-hart.com/home/onscreen-book.htm)


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or
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http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList

True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
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References:
PDF vs Help: From: WilliamFLawrence

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