Re: PDFs as online help?

Subject: Re: PDFs as online help?
From: Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 08:54:18 -0700

You can open a PDF to a specific topic by specifying a named
destination using Acrobat Core API calls, command-line switches, or
URL parameters:

http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/acrobat/PDFOpenParams.pdf

In 2000 I used PDF to deliver online help for a Web-based application
because it worked better than the alternatives available at the time.
Today I'd probably use OmniHelp.

Adobe switched from PDF to FlashHelp because it's trying to promote
FlashHelp, so I don't think that says anything about the suitability
of PDF for this purpose. On the other hand, as an end user, when Adobe
used PDF for online help, I found it annoyingly inferior to MS HTML
Help.

My personal preference for dealing with special-character issues would
be to install the necessary fonts with the product. However, when I
proposed that for one product, it didn't happen. As I recall, the
product manager didn't want to spend the money to license the font and
the engineers had some security concerns.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.

Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat


References:
PDFs as online help?: From: Nancy Allison

Previous by Author: Re: job-hunt weirdness
Next by Author: Re: job-hunt weirdness
Previous by Thread: Re: PDFs as online help?
Next by Thread: RE: PDFs as online help?


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads